Program & Staff
Children choose, talk, solve problems, move, make, and learn alongside one another. HighScope gives the day its structure; Christian values help shape how children and adults care for one another.
What we believe
Every child is a child of God, and deserves respect, protection, attention and affirmation. Every child is worthy of our unconditional love, kindness and care.
Our work is to give parents in this community a safe and comforting place, and a good early education, so a child grows in body, mind and spirit.
Our teachers set out to support every child through choices, Christian values, conversation, problem solving, and time spent with other children.
What a week contains
The program is built on HighScope, which starts from a child’s own interests and strengths and builds toward what school will ask of them. Each of these runs through the week rather than being timetabled into a slot.
-
Art
Making things is how a young child imagines, solves a problem, and says something they cannot yet say in words. It carries reading, science and mathematics along with it.
-
Music
Singing, listening and playing instruments, and learning to hear the difference between high and low, fast and slow, loud and soft, and a steady beat.
-
Movement
As a child gets more control of their body they stop using it only to get places. Creative movement is where that turns into expression.
-
Language
Children want to be understood, and most of the learning happens in ordinary play and conversation. The rest comes from being read to and talked with by an adult.
-
Mathematics
Relationships a child notices while exploring the room become the foundation. Counting, number lines, things to handle, and problems inside a story.
-
Outside play
Running, jumping, climbing, sliding and learning to land. It builds coordination and balance, and it is good for a child’s thinking and their temper.
Handwriting comes through Learning Without Tears, which begins in the older preschool rooms, the year before kindergarten. Life skills and fun fitness run alongside all of it.
The Christian part of the day
Growing FootPrints is a mission outreach program of the Presbyterian Church of Los Gatos, and the day reflects it. We do not read Bible verses. Teachers say a short, age-appropriate prayer before snack and before lunch. Each teacher has their own style; the Director gives them a short starting prayer they can use or make their own.
Meet the Staff
Vanessa Manrique, Director
Vanessa has worked with children since her first job at sixteen, as an aide at a private preschool. She finished at Del Mar High School in 1996, earned her certificate in early childhood education at WestMed, and started at Growing FootPrints in September 1997.
She became assistant program director in June 2022 and director in January 2025. She continues to study early childhood education and serves on the early childhood education advisory committee at San Jose City College.
Direct: 408-356-4442
Our teachers
Every teacher here is qualified in early childhood education, certified in First Aid, and certified in CPR. The school is a member of Californians for Quality Early Learning.
Olga
Afterschool Care Program teacher, with experience as an elementary school teacher, preschool teacher, and afterschool educator. Her teaching philosophy is guided by Jess Lair’s reminder that children are people to be unfolded.
Christina
Emie
Twenty-three years of teaching experience.
Karla Scott
A preschool teacher since 1997.
Karina
Aide in Sophie’s room.
Martha
Green Room teacher with more than eight years of experience working with young children through play, exploration, and creativity. Her goal is a room where every child feels safe, loved, and excited to learn.
Come and meet the teacher in the room your child would be in. That is a better introduction than anything we could write here: arrange a look around.
Licensed child care
Growing FootPrints is licensed by the State of California as child care facility 434417243. The license covers toddlers from 18 to 36 months and preschoolers from age 3 through entry into first grade. The Presbyterian Church of Los Gatos is the licensee.