Program Profile: Rainbow School in Stanford, California

Rainbow School’s one-room schoolhouse helps build a truly international community of families.

Program Overview
The Rainbow School at Escondido Village has been part of the Stanford University campus child care system since 1970. Many of the children come from families in the university’s international graduate community, so the program faces such challenges as easing children’s transition to their new surroundings and helping them learn a new language.

Diversity is vital to Rainbow School’s philosophy. Families and their young children come to Rainbow School from countries across the world, bringing to Rainbow a variety of beliefs and practices around childrearing and schooling. Children, staff, and parents work to embrace each other’s differences and similarities. The Parent Handbook states, “The Rainbow School honors all groups represented in our classroom population. In addition to general curriculum planning, our staff will plan activities which incorporate your family traditions…. Sharing your family’s culture, while being respecful of the culture of others, allows for an enriching experience for all.”

The program is a parent cooperative program with three to five parents working each day with teachers. A father points out that the Rainbow School was “a perfect way for our family to integrate in America and in the Bay Area, for our kids as well as for us since co-oping at school allowed us to feel socially integrated and meet a lot of other parents.”

Family Engagement Program Practices

Two-Way Communication
Children begin Rainbow School speaking a range of home languages, so staff must be intentional in communicating clearly with children and families. For example,

• Teachers encourage children to speak in their first and second languages. Former director Jayanti També explains, “We believe that the more children feel their first language and culture is recognized, the more they will take risks in learning a new one. Children are encouraged to speak to each other in both their first and second languages to develop confidence and overall language skills. It’s amazing how quickly children can learn!”
• Teachers tell stories at circle using props, including puppets, flannels, or objects from the story, in order to support children’s language development and engagement in stories. Sometimes children help create the props and sometimes children act out the story.
• While most teachers primarily speak English, some speak multiple languages. Teachers reach out to each child in his or her home language, learning key words and phrases.
• Teachers use a differentiated approach to supporting language development, using self-talk, narration, and predictable and repetitive words and phrases; extending the words spoken by the children; and avoiding correcting children’s speech.
• Rainbow’s diversified learning approach also addresses children’s special needs. Staff work to identify support for children with special needs in their home language. Examples include referring a family to Spanish language development evaluation services, and searching the region to locate an Indonesian-speaking translator for a family concerned about possible autism.
• Very often, family members act as interpreters or translators  among children or between children and teachers. Volunteers from the university’s International Center also provide translation assistance.
• Teachers create story bags to send home so that multiple language learners can continue practicing English at home. Each kit consists of a story, props to help retell the story, and related activities to extend the child’s learning.

Family participation at Rainbow helps parents practice their English in a welcoming and supportive immersion setting. An ESL class is co-located so that Rainbow parents can learn there more formally and then practice what they learn at Rainbow. For Rainbow children, particularly international children experiencing the US celebration of Halloween for the first time, it has been a fun cultural exchange to parade in costume to the ESL class. For the finale, the adult English language learners sing Halloween songs to the children in a room full of lighted jack o’lanterns.

Reciprocal Relationships
Staff create a sense of community by encouraging families to share their knowledge, strengths, and cultural traditions. For example,

• The program tries to schedule parents sharing a language or country of origin to co-op together. In addition to providing classroom support, parents can use their time together to share tips about the community, such as where to find good grocery stores or family activities.
• Families share their childrearing practices, traditions, foods, and holidays with Rainbow School teachers, children, and other families. Some children are spoon-fed their lunch by teachers or co-oping family members; one sits on a teacher’s lap in a rocking chair instead of lying on a cot to fall asleep; some bring books from home in German, Danish, or Japanese; family members lead songs at circle in Korean, Russian, or Hindi.
• Everyone—parents, relatives, siblings, neighbors, and friends—is invited to regularly scheduled potlucks.
• A large world map on the wall indicates where each child is from, with a string leading from the city and country of origin to the child’s photo. “It gave all of us a sense from just how far we had all come to be together at a school as great as Rainbow School,” says a parent. “One of the most memorable and long-lasting lessons we have from Rainbow School is a sense that every individual is a world of opportunity from which to learn.”

Teachers also engage parents in activity planning: One child and his mother shared their favorite Japanese children’s song, and the teachers and children made up gestures to go along with the words. The song is now a Rainbow favorite. A mother drew a human body, complete with transliterated Korean words for the “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” song, and the children and teachers now know the words. Parents have also participated in:

• storytelling sessions, often bilingual
• woodworking projects
• animal care
• creative arts projects
• science experiments
• gardening
• flower arranging
• cultural festivals

Developed for NAEYC's Engaging Diverse Families Project through a generous grant from the Picower Foundation.
© National Association for the Education of Young Children.