Snoqualmie Valley district opens new Early Learning Center

Published 10:15 am Tuesday, September 16, 2025

The first day of school for Snoqualmie and North Bend preschoolers included a celebration of a new Early Learning Center in downtown North Bend.

The Early Learning Center (ELC) serves 3- and 4-year-olds who live in the Snoqualmie Valley School District (SVSD) through half-day and full-day programs. The center doubles the amount of preschoolers SVSD can serve, according to the district.

Funding for the ELC came from a $244.4 million bond approved by voters in 2015, which also funded Mount Si High School and Timber Ridge Elementary. The ELC building formerly housed Two Rivers School, which now resides on the Mount Si High School campus.

The SVSD preschool program — formerly run out of Snoqualmie Elementary — has an “incredible reputation,” said ELC Principal Meredith Macvean. While some things about the program have changed this year, she said the caliber of the staff has not.

“This staff is dedicated. They are experts. They are empathetic and loving and so skilled,” she said. “I really can’t speak highly enough of the staff.”

In addition to eight preschool teachers, the ELC has school psychologists, occupational therapists and speech therapists. A majority of the teachers have special education training, and each classroom has two paraeducators.

“Simply by providing those services in the classroom, we not only serve students in their least restrictive environment, which is what we want to happen, but it also equips the other adults in the room or in the building to be able to kind of gain those skills by being able to observe or hear what’s happening,” Macvean said.

Macvean is coming from a role as assistant principal at Cascade View Elementary. She has worked for the school district for about a decade, originally starting as a fifth grade teacher.

Since then, Macvean has had a variety of roles in the education realm and said she is always looking to learn something new.

“I just absolutely am enamored with education and all there is to it,” she said.

When Macvean decided she was ready to broaden her horizons once again, she took an interest in preschool work. With young kids of her own, she said that age is “full of hope and possibility.”

She also said she has a passion for teaching children with diverse learning needs.

“Here at the preschool, we serve all students, including those with learning difficulties, and I’ve always just been so drawn to and inspired by kids who need something different,” she said. “I have wanted to be of service as much as possible to all students, particularly those with learning difficulties.”

Macvean’s goal with the ELC is, first and foremost, to create a welcoming environment for students as well as parents, educators and the community at large.

“I genuinely believe that anything is possible for students if they feel that sense of love and belonging,” she said.

The ELC also focuses heavily on kindergarten readiness, which Macvean said is helped by the fact that preschoolers are already introduced to curriculum they will encounter in SVSD elementary schools.

An example of this curriculum is the 95 Percent Group’s phonics program, which SVSD has been utilizing for a few years. Due to a grant given to the Snoqualmie Valley Schools Foundation by Seattle nonprofit Foundry10, the program will be used in the ELC as well.

Foundation President Lorraine Thurston emphasized how helpful the phonics program will be and noted her appreciation for Foundry10’s partnership.

“When we get opportunities like this, it kind of helps reinforce that the work that we do is impactful, and it’s going to make a difference,” she said.

So far, SVSD has seen great results from the phonics program, Macvean said.

“We have seen just a profound impact on students’ development in pre-literacy and literacy skills over the course of the past few years,” she said. “When we think about kindergarten readiness as it relates to literacy or pre-literacy skills, it is going to be just a huge benefit to our students, both in that we know that this is a sound, solid curriculum backed by incredible research and the science of reading, but it’s also going to be familiar [when they enter kindergarten].”

The new ELC, Macvean said, also adds value to SVSD’s offerings in that the preschool experience can be a family’s introduction to the public school system.

“We can be that first experience for a lot of people and to help orient them to the public school system and all that there is to know and learn within that, and then can provide a nice, warm handoff as they shift from the Early Learning Center into our elementary schools,” she said. “I would hope that the transition would be far less bumpy than it would be without it.”

To inquire about preschool programming or sign up, visit svsd410.org/client-page-academics/early-childhood-education.