One City Early Learning Centers (One City) is a new preschool that opened on Madison's South Side in September 2015. The school is presently located in a temporary location, the educational wing of Fountain of Life Covenant Church at 633 West Badger Road. Its permanent home located at 2012 Fisher Street in Madison is currently under renovation. The renovation will be completed in May 2016 and our children will have their first day in our new facility on June 4, 2016. At capacity, we will serve 110 children ages birth to 5. Visit us on the web at www.onecityearlylearning.org or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/onecityearlylearning. 

We are seeking fun, energetic, inspiring, reliable and dedicated Volunteers to join us in service to children and families attending our preschool. All One City volunteers must be passionate about working with young children and their parents, and be able to focus on helping children reach their full potential. This is an unpaid position where the hours of service each week or month are dependent upon your availability to volunteer. Our hours of operation are 6:45am to 5:30pm Monday through Friday, but we often have opportunities for evening and weekend volunteering as well (assisting with special events, recreational activities, routine building maintenance, etc.).

One City's mission is to prepare young children from birth to age 5 for success in school and life, and to ensure they enter grade school reading-ready. Our vision is to cultivate happy, innovative and resourceful children who will empower others and change the world and their communities for the better. To this end, our goal is to ensure young children are prepared to read, compute and succeed at grade level by the time they reach first grade. We will achieve our aims by working in partnership with parents and the broader community to ensure children have access to a high quality education, employed and resourceful parents, healthy families and a network of community support.

One City provides a safe, caring and nurturing environment for young children, while cultivating their social, emotional, physical, cognitive and sociolinguistic needs. We use the Creative Curriculum as the basis of our learning and developmental program for infants, toddlers and preschoolers. Through our curriculum and educational program, we offer a literacy-rich environment, where children are exposed to language and words through age-appropriate reading, conversation, letter/number and word identification, and play. Teachers also use fun, age-appropriate lullabies, board books, song books/music, rhyming books, alphabet books and picture books to inspire a love of reading with children, and to broaden their awareness and interests. Children are read to daily, are guided to initiate, discover, experience and learn about ideas, events, people, nature and things, and learn to create, experiment, problem-solve and resolve conflicts.

All One City teachers participate in structured professional development annually, and have opportunities to extend their learning in areas of interest to them and their children. Our emphasis on early literacy development is an intentional effort to ensure children are prepared to become strong readers when in grade school, and to overcome extraordinary disparities and low levels of reading proficiency among school-aged children.

Children aren't the only ones who enroll in One City, parents do too. Through our Institute for Child Development, which will kick-off in September 2016, and a robust network of partnerships, One City will offer informative, insightful and fun seminars, workshops, special events and other learning activities for parents and the entire family. We will assist parents and their older children with accessing available educational and employment opportunities and supports in the Greater Madison community. We will also provide educational opportunities for parents, volunteers and community members to learn and share how they can help foster the positive growth and development of children, and ensure they are ready for, and succeeding in, grade school. 

The Institute is being co-developed by Dr. Marianne Bloch, Professor Emerita at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Diana Grove, a teacher with the world renowned Center for Investigating Healthy Minds in Madison, with a growing number of community partners as well. These partners will continue to play key roles in the Institute going forward. When it launches in the fall, it will serve as a community-based professional development schools for parents and other care givers, early childhood and elementary school educators, community educators and volunteers, and leaders of schools and educational programs for children. 

RESPONSIBILITIES OF VOLUNTEERS (Vary based on volunteer assignment)

• Assist teacher in carrying out daily lesson plans.
• Assist in preparation of classroom materials.
• Work with small groups of children to   encourage self-expression and good self-esteem.
• Work with a child on a one-to-one basis to carry out an individualized program.
• Assist with maintenance and up-keep of the classroom, playgrounds and external grounds of the facility.
• Assist teacher with supervision on the playground.
• Accompany and assist with supervision on field trips.
• Assist the Director or Assistant Director with mailings, filing paperwork, making phone calls and other administrative tasks.
• Perform other duties as assigned by the teacher.

• Strong commitment to the mission, vision, goals and objectives of One City Early Learning Centers, and to working to with young children from diverse racial, cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds and their families.
• Enthusiasm and a strong interest in preschool education is a must. The ability to relate well with preschool children.
• A general knowledge of child development, child behavior and the processes involved in learning.
• Be a creative individual who can share his/her talents in the classroom and assist the teacher in the preparation of classroom materials. 
• Good moral character and health.
• High school equivalency or diploma preferred.
• Ability to regularly and routinely lift and push at least 50 pounds.
• Completion of a background check required.
• Be at least 18 years of age.