Gateways For Youth and Families Early Learning Center

The center has openings now and is accepting students from the Parkland, East Tacoma, Puyallup, Summit-Waller and Midland areas. We are partnering with Franklin Pierce School District to offer “Ready! for Kindergarten” and “Read It Again!”

We offer gardening and musical enrichment and private lessons for children of parents who are interested.

We are a progressive Early Learning Center located conveniently between two Franklin-Pierce school district elementary schools in the Summit-Waller area on 104th Street.

Here at Gateways Early Learning Center, we want your children’s time to be fun and educational, while meeting your family’s individual needs.

Gateways Early Learning Center is licensed to provide childcare and currently has openings in our preschool and toddler rooms! We are a non-profit organization that has been shaping young lives since 1890, for over 120 years, located in the Summit Waller area. Our Early Learning Center is located in Tacoma between Puyallup, Parkland, Spanaway and East Tacoma on 32 acres of beautiful farmland.

What makes Gateways Early Learning Center the best place for your child to be during the day? All our teachers and staff are childcare professionals with many years of experience and training in early childhood education. We have birth-3 curriculum for our toddlers all day preschool and pre-Kindergarten curriculum.

At Gateways Early Learning Center we incorporate our natural environment into everyday learning which includes a kitchen garden and musical instruments. We serve all natural meals with mostly organic foods and the price for meals is included in tuition costs.

Our childcare is an Eco-Healthy center and we follow best practices. Everyone who is a part of Gateways Early Learning Center knows that it is a privilege to be a part of a child’s growth and development.

Our staff takes pride in making sure each child in our care is reaching their fullest potential.

We have low student-teacher ratios with a family oriented homelike atmosphere, but we offer all the benefits of a center. Currently we have competitive low rates that match our current economic climate and accept DSHS.

We are open 6 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday-Friday and are now enrolling children between the ages of 1-5 years of age. We will work with your schedule the best we can to meet your family’s individual needs.

We are now offering piano lessons for children if parents are interested.

At the Early Learning Center, creative play and arts activities are combined with basic education and social skills. Children have fun all day long in a specially prepared space. At the ELC, we engage the whole child.

They are having fun as they grow stronger, smarter and more skillful each day. Children learn how to listen, share, follow directions, sit quietly, run, jump, sing, dance, draw, paint, garden, play well with others and get ready for a lifetime of learning and success. Our curriculum was developed jointly by licensed teachers and professionals in youth development, elementary education, and special needs children, with an emphasis on school readiness, creative arts and healthy living choices.

At the Ranch, the children enrolled in the Learning Center preschool have a large fenced outdoor play yard reserved for their use, as well as an indoor recreation space and dance studio. Like all GATEWAYS Ranch programs, children will be introduced to the diversity of cultures that live in and around our community and have access to the benefits of our 30 acres of rural green space, with outdoor recreation areas, gardens and natural settings where they can play, learn and develop a relationship with the natural world and a respect for the people who live in it.

Child Ages:

3 weeks - 6 years

Licenses & Accreditations:

Washington State Department of Early Learning

Preschool:

Yes

Hours of Operation:

Monday - Friday 6:00am - 6:00pm