About
Our Mission
With reverence for play and wonder, we provide a program for infants, toddlers, and preschool children that is rooted in our natural surroundings. Partnering with families, we provide a rich learning environment where diversity is celebrated, where kindness and sincerity are used to solve everyday problems, and where children's questions drive independent learning.
Our History
Little Peaks, Inc. was founded in 1993 as a nonprofit organization by dedicated parents in the greater Keene community. Based in the Keene Community Center, this original, three-hour program flourished. As a play- and nature-based program, as well as the designated preschool provider for Keene Central School (KCS), it passed generations of town children through its doors. With local support, we became an enduring and essential part of community life.
In 2020, Little Peaks received seed funding to build a new, innovative Center that would expand operations to address the needs of local and regional families with infants, toddlers, and preschoolers (ages six months to five years old). In 2023 Little Peaks Preschool & Early Childcare Center opened its doors in the heart of Keene. In addition to continuing to provide preschool/UPK offerings, helping to nurture the next generations into KCS and other primary schools, we offer full-day, year-round services in our four interior classrooms, unique outdoor play yards, and customized kitchen, from which the children are served a fresh, healthy, homemade breakfast, lunch, and snacks every day.
As we grow the Little Peaks mission, we are thrilled and honored to serve Adirondack children and their families with our dedicated, talented, and compassionate staff of caregivers.
Relationship with KCS
Little Peaks is the “designated preschool provider” for Keene Central School (KCS). This means that our preschoolers follow a developmentally appropriate curriculum of pre-kindergarten early learning standards to prepare them for kindergarten at KCS — or wherever their next steps take them.
Within our role as preschool provider, Little Peaks is fortunate to have the support of KCS toward our UPK program, which is open at no charge to all four-year-olds that are residents of the Town of Keene. This program, which is supported in part by state and federal funding, works to attract, prepare and retain the youngest of our school-aged students into the KCS district. It also provides educational and community building opportunities for our families.
