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Since 1985, C5 Children’s School has provided children and their families with safe, nurturing, and educational spaces in which to learn, grow, and thrive. We’re committed to teaching children how to become highly capable and caring learners, critical thinkers, and productive community members.
Every individual team member in our San Francisco early learning and development centers has the training and expertise to support your child’s success now and later in their life.
Our mission is to facilitate young children’s optimal development and learning in a safe, supportive, and enriched environment.
Our mission is to facilitate young children’s optimal development and learning in a safe, supportive, and enriched environment.
We changed our name in 2005 from Civic Center Child Care Corporation, familiarly known as C5, to its official, legal name of C5 Children’s School. Our logo was selected from work done by two-year-old Miriam during her learning group’s ocean project and its perpetual use by us has been officially approved by her parents.
Our current capacity for staff is for approximately 40 members working at our San Francisco early learning and development centers and another dozen special consultants and services to our program. Click the icon to meet our staff.
C5 has provision for 14 members of our Board of Directors. Click the icon to meet our board members.
We provide questions that we frequently hear and supply answers to help you in understanding our childhood development programs. Click the icon to view our FAQ page.
C5 attracts highly talented, thoroughly schooled, and experienced staff members in every position in instructional, support, and administrative roles. If you’d like a career at a leading San Francisco preschool, contact C5 today! Click the icon to get started.
We invite you to contact us for more information and to pursue enrollment, tours, attend special events, and gather information that might be helpful to you. Click the phone icon to contact us today.
All of our families and staff members join in recognizing and engaging daily with our marvelous diversity. We welcome and are proud of all the differences represented by children, parents, and staff including their race, color, creed, religion, national origin, ancestry, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, and other unique qualities.
This diversity is celebrated and a source of continued powerful learning, skill building, and learning group cohesion through special programs, such as the Summer Book & Box, Winter Cultural Highlights, Family Food Experiences, Fall Family Festival, and Festival of Learning.
We also explore many aspects of those issues with children in the natural course of examining daily life and learning throughout the year as part of our emergent curriculum. We believe in robust equity for all.
Our goal is to provide leadership and innovation for learning of the highest quality to our enrolled children and their families and to the Early Care and Education community. At all of our San Francisco preschools, we aspire to demonstrate how our view of children and our work with them to be highly capable and caring learners, critical thinkers, and community members leads to their success now and later in school and life.
Our philosophy of learning and development is influenced by the constructivist and social-constructivist learning theories of John Dewey, Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky, and Jerome Bruner.
Other influences are from the work of Howard Gardner; Reggio Emilia’s Loris Malaguzzi and Carlina Rinaldi; and C5 Children’s School’s approaches of “Partnership with Children,” “Partnership with Parents,” and “Community of Learners.”
Our Community of Learners approach stems from the group process and organization development work and writings of Richard and Patricia Schmuck. We are also influenced by the methods developed by the Program for Infant-Toddler Care (PITC), which is a collaboration of the West-Ed Laboratory for Educational Research and Development and Magda Gerber’s Resources for Infant Educarers (RIE). Learn more about our philosophy.
Our inspiration is drawn in part from the educators and preprimary schools of Reggio Emilia, Italy, and from others from around the U.S. and the world who are also influenced by progressive, social-constructivist approaches to Early Care and Education.
Our faculty regularly participates in conferences and activities conducted by the North American Reggio Alliance and by other progressive schools in the USA and abroad.
We provide care for children who are six weeks old to 5.9 years old at our San Francisco preschool and early education centers. We serve them and their families in our world-renowned program. They are our co-equal partners in learning and development and receive our deep respect and dedication in all aspects of our work and our organization. We collaborate with them to maintain an atmosphere that is joyful, exciting, caring, aesthetic, compelling, and rich with creativity, surprises, shared successes, and the promise of great possibilities.
Our staff facilitates individual and group development by supporting stimulating learning experiences, environments, materials, tools, and equipment that foster physical growth, emotional well-being, social relationships, creativity, and intellectual development based on children’s interests and fascinations via an emergent curriculum and an approach that features in-depth explorations and projects. Meet our team here.
Our hours of operation at all centers are currently 8:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. There may be exceptions as a result of the pandemic, and hours may change further as we continue to adjust to better serve families and new orientations to the word of work.
C5 was founded in 1985 as a non-profit public benefit corporation, and was one of the first on-site business child care programs in San Francisco
We expanded our services and established a preschool center for older toddlers through Pre-K children (The CA State Building Center)
We were selected to open a new center at the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission building
We were selected to prepare a new center for operations in the newly constructed San Francisco Permit Building. It is planned to open in early 2023.
We were selected to prepare to reopen an Infant Center. It is planned to open in early 2023.
We continue to offer diverse and comprehensive child development and learning services to children and their families around the San Francisco Bay area
C5 Children’s School began as The Civic Center Child Care Corporation in 1985 as a non-profit public benefit corporation. It was created by a volunteer group of parents and state employees who worked in the California Public Utilities Commission building in San Francisco.
Their goal was to establish on-site child care services for state employees and the general public. The result was one of the first on-site business child care programs in San Francisco. It was located in the State of California Public Utilities Commission Building at 505 Van Ness Avenue. We initially served children who were two months to three years old.
In 1999, we were asked to expand our services and establish a preschool center for older toddlers through pre-k children and their families by opening the C5 Children’s School Preschool Center two blocks away in the Hiram Johnson State Office Building at 455 Golden Gate Avenue. It is now called the CA State Building Center.
Now, our official, legal name is C5 Children’s School. For the first part of our new name, we kept the “C5” nick name that everyone used in place of our longer name and added “Children’s School” to represent our evolution from a child care program to the full-featured learning and development program that we have developed since 2002.
Now, our official, legal name is C5 Children’s School. For the first part of our new name, we kept the “C5” nick name that everyone used in place of our longer name and added “Children’s School” to represent our evolution from a child care program to the full-featured learning and development program that we have developed since 2002.
In the fall of 2011, we were selected to operate the child development program in the new San Francisco Public Utilities Commission building that was being completed at 525 Golden Gate Avenue. The building opened in the summer of 2012. C5 obtained licenses to operate an Infant-Toddler Program and a Preschool through Pre-Kindergarten Program in the new SF City Building Center.
The first license was issued in July 2012 by California Community Care Licensing for 36 infant-toddler children who are six weeks old to two years old, and we began serving them at that time in the two classrooms on the ground floor. We obtained a Preschool license in October 2012 to enroll 45 children who are two years old to six years old in the new center, and we began providing service at that time on the second floor for children in that age range.
Today, both of our San Francisco preschool centers, the SF City Building Center and the CA State Building Center combine their services to provide a comprehensive program for children who are six weeks old to six years old or to the time they enter Kindergarten.
Both centers are licensed through the California Health and Human Services Agency, Department of Social Services, Community Care Licensing Division.
Our Jelly Person logo was drawn by an almost three year-old child at C5 as part of her interest in sea creatures during an ocean project that the children chose to study and represent in various media.
They worked on the project each day for weeks; created a 6×12 foot three-dimensional mural of the ocean replete with creatures and water levels; discovered the abyss; studied dozens of ocean animals and learned their names; and, had visitors to the classroom with their full equipment, including an open water swimmer, a surfer, and a dry-suit scuba diver.
The children drew many of the sea creatures, constructed prototype jellyfish and other animals from various materials, and made a 6×6 foot multimedia thank you collage of the ocean for the visitors that included many of the elements that they learned over the previous few weeks and representations of the visitors to the classroom in it.
We see the logo as indicative of the power of children’s ability to explore and express themselves in great depth and breadth and in ways that can often exceed adult expectations.
The logo also conveys our respect for the wide range of diversity of the children and families in our infant, toddler, preschool, pre-k program. It also represents our roots in the San Francisco Bay area, including all of the maritime elements!
We believe that there is no better way to simply and powerfully represent C5 Children’s School.
C5 uses our copyrighted Jelly Person logo as a trademark on all of our official business and program communications and on clothing and other products that are available for purchase by families and friends of C5 in support of our vision, values, and goals for optimal learning and development for children, families, community members, and early childhood professionals everywhere.
