Today we’d like to introduce you to Jessica Johnson
Hi Jessica, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My name is Jessica Johnson, and I am currently the director of Westminster Presbyterian Day School. WPDS is a cooperative preschool in Tarrytown that was started in 1977. I first started working at WPDS in 2003 as an aide. I graduated from UT Austin the year before, in 2002. My degree was in Art History, and I worked part-time during college at the Paramount Theater. I thought I would have a career supporting the arts in some way and even worked at Arena Stage in Washington, DC where I moved with a couple of friends after graduation. I quickly realized how difficult it was to work for a non-profit and how much I missed Texas and returned to Austin a year later. I also got engaged around that same time and knew that we would want to start a family quickly after getting married so I wanted to find a job that would be family friendly. I did lots of babysitting in high school and college and loved young children, so I was considering going back to school to get a teaching certificate in Elementary Education. I was working for a family at the time whose children attended WPDS, and they mentioned that the school was looking to hire an aide. I thought it would be a great part-time job while I got my teaching certificate. Well, I ended up falling in love with Westminster and have never looked back. After my first year working for them as an aide, a teaching position came available, and I quickly took it. Instead of getting a teaching certificate in Elementary Education I got a Child Development Associate certificate where the focus was Early Childhood Education. I was a lead teacher at Westminster for 15 years when in 2019 I interviewed for and was chosen to become the next director.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
I started as the director of Westminster Presbyterian Day School in August of 2019. Things went smoothly that fall and then in the spring our world changed drastically. The Covid-19 Pandemic hit during March of 2020. I have a distinct memory of being in a meeting with other Austin-area preschool directors on Wednesday, March 11 and we were wondering how worried we should be about families that would be traveling for Spring Break and what, if any precautions, we should take. Then two days later, schools closed a day before we were going to be out for Spring Break, and we didn’t reopen the rest of the school year. As a new director, that was a stressful time to navigate. Thankfully, our school has a Board of Directors, and together we figured things out, one step at a time, as this was new territory for all of us. We spent that summer trying to figure out how to safely reopen in the fall, and with some changes to how we operated, we made a plan. We would spend more time outdoors, in fact, some of our classes met outside only. We would shorten the day so that the children would leave before lunch, and we wouldn’t have to worry about spreading germs during mealtime. We would pause the cooperative aspect of our program and not have parent helpers in the classroom but rather have regular aides so that the children were only exposed to germs from their teacher and the aide and not a different parent each school day. The adults and older children wore masks. We would take the children’s temperatures each morning before letting them into class. There were lots of changes but in the end, the families were so thankful to have a safe space for the children to come play and just be a kid and not worry about what was happening in the world around them. In the years since then, there were other challenges, but nothing quite like the pandemic. After five years as director, I finally feel like this is the first year that has felt like a normal year. Things are going well for our school, we will be at full capacity next year, and we have a waitlist for all our classes.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
The mission of Westminster has not changed much since it was first established in 1977. We have always been committed to an appreciation of childhood as a unique and valuable stage of life. We are still a cooperative preschool, meaning we have parent helpers in the classroom. There are not many cooperative preschools in the central Austin area, and it is a unique part of our program. It gives parents the opportunity to see exactly what their child’s day at school is like, it helps build a strong sense of community, and it allows parents to learn from our teachers. Since I’ve become director, and in part because of Covid, the school now has a stronger focus on outdoor learning. Our campus has four distinct outdoor play areas that the children rotate through each day, weather permitting. Children need to be outside running and playing with their peers, getting dirty, and breathing fresh air. Our goal is to create a space for children to be children, a space that is for them. We are a play-based program where the teachers have the freedom to create their own curriculum based on the needs and interests of the children in their class. They set up learning environments both indoors and outdoors that are inviting to the children and then give the children time and space to play, be curious, be creative, engage with the world around them and to discover who they are as people and what interests them. Most of our direct instruction is around social and emotional skills. We think it’s important to teach the children how to be good friends, how to share and take turns, and how to empathize with their classmates. Westminster is a special place. I feel so lucky to work with the staff and families who have chosen to be a part of our community.
What’s next?
Westminster will celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2027 and I look forward to marking that milestone. I am the 5th director of the school and I am close with all four former directors. I look forward to collaborating with them to honor our school and the staff and families that have been a part of it over the years.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.wpdsaustin.org/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wpdsaustin/
Image Credits
Chad Adams
