We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Carolina Peredo. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Carolina below.
Carolina, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s kick things off with a hypothetical question – if it were up to you, what would you change about the school or education system to better prepare students for a more fulfilling life and career?
My dream would be to see the educational system shifting to a more inclusive one, in the sense of reaching all types of learning styles. Research has shown that all humans have many different types of intelligences, capabilities and interests, and not one person learns the exact same way as the other. Knowing that, we gear our program towards an individualized type of learning, basing our curriculum mainly in the Montessori philosophy. Research has also shown how most children learn best when they can move their bodies, how people learn best when the area of study serves them for a real purpose -interest- and finally but most importantly, during the early childhood years: there is no learning without emotional connection. At La Tribu Preschool we have a moto that reads “connection before correction”. All our staff is constantly training into ways of understanding the children needs and how to connect with their emotions. Modeling empathy, patience, respect and setting up boundaries is in the core of our daily routines. When we say that Montessori prepares children for life, we mean that our program main goal is ti support and inspire children into a process of self discovery and self esteem. When children are in connection with the things they love, the things they are interested in and good at, recognize their limitations, they grow into happier beings.
We propose a program where children learn academics thru the Montessori method, connect with their emotions thru a carefully designed mindfulness program – that includes meditation even since they are toddlers- , learn about life cycles thru hands on experiences and deep into their cultural roots thru a language immersion program.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
I was a film and Tv producer and journalist until I became a Mom. I found out about Montessori when I was pregnant with my first child, 11 years ago. I started learning about the philosophy mainly thru following several Mom bloggers in the USA, Australia and Europe. At that point, one of my best friends and colleague in Argentina was hosting a radio show about respectful parenting, and I’ve created a whole world for myself. To me, Montessori was almost a guidebook into learning how to become a Mom, but most importantly, to decide what type of parent I wanted to become. During the first year and a half of my first born I decided to stay home with him for the most part and dedicate my days to be with him. The days whereas long as the nights, but I enjoyed setting all my house “the Montessori way” to promote in my son lots of independence. Everything would take longer, simple tasks as cooking, dressing, picking up toys, grocery shopping, where basically led by him and following his pase. It was as magical as overwhelming, as loving as intense time. Coming from Argentina straight to Austin when I was 28, the first two years as an “expact” where exciting and filled with discovery. My focus was into learning as much as possible from my new environment and trying to blend into the new culture. When I became a Mom that focus shifted. I was now on a mission to find my “tribe”. I learned very quickly that sharing my pregnancy with my friends and my Mom abroad thru the internet wasn’t going to fulfill all my needs. It was then when I met Daniela Ruiz. Daniela was also pregnant -in the exact same trimester- and was also from Argentina. Soon enough I learned that we shared more than the Spanish language. We became work partners, entrepreneurs and inseparable friends. our first endeavor was a Radio Show in Spanish at a local station, where we talked about being Moms in a different culture. We would interview professionals in all areas and learned about the “American ways” of raising children vs what we new about it from our friends and families back in Argentina. We also launched a successful blog with the same subject and we found a broad audience of likeminded Moms – and sometimes Dads- that would relate to our stories. We would touch topics such as nutrition, sleep trainings, healthy pregnancies, natural births, breastfeeding, general childhood development, positive discipline, alternative education, use of screens, the list goes on.
Daniela and I got pregnant almost at the same time for the second round, this time with girls! It was at that point that the idea of opening our own child development center was born. We were ready to send our now 2yo boys to daycare, but we couldn’t find a program that would combine the 2 key elements that we were looking after: Montessori philosophy combined with a Spanish Immersion curriculum.
It was March of 2015 when we decided to move forward with the plan of founding Austin’s first “Spanish Immersion Montessori Inspired” preschool. Hosted by the best landlord we cold dream of, Natalie Kane, and with the help of our families, La Tribu Preschool opened its doors in January 2016 in North Austin. At the time, our students consisted in our own children and some friends, but very quickly we grew the program to fill out 2 classrooms for ages 18 months – 6 years. We built our programming and curriculum along great teachers and mentors, we connected with educators locally and world wide to help craft our art. We defined our school culture, identity and curriculum as a artist craft it project. We dedicated long days and nights and weekends and many sacrifices to build the project into what is today: a place where families can feel at home. The constant feedback we continue to receive from families is that they find in our schools and our educators caring and loving folks that would care for their children as they were their own. On top of that peace of mind, families find that the level of Spanish that children that go thru our program is very advance. We know that for the most part parents are attracted to our program for the language acquisition component, but once they discover the program in deep they realize about how transformational the Montessori approach could be.
The key element of our language program is the cultural aspect of it: every single educator that participates in our school is responsible for providing children with a wholesome cultural experience. Teachers come to become a part of La Tribu from different latin American countries and while developing the lesson plans they poor their own identities, traditions, beliefs, ways of being into it. The richness of the program is based in the genuine pride and love that we all poor into teaching our children about our own roots. It takes a village to raise independent, wholesome, nurtured, emotionally aware, loving children. We, parents can’t do it in their solitude. We need a “Tribu” of likeminded folks to do it along with.
Can you talk to us about your experience with buying businesses?
When my son was 1, before La Tribu became a reality, we were renting a house in South Austin, near Menchaca Rd. At that time my husband – who is a filmmaker but has an innate ability to find the best properties ever- found a school called “White Bird Montessori”. When we toured the space, we fall in love with the “campo” style of it: an old, rustic solid rock building with amazing wooden floors and great outdoors. The ancient trees providing natural shade and the freedom the children had to explore struck us first. At that time we weren’t necessarily ready for him to start daycare and we end up moving to central Austin a year later, where my daughter was born. When we started La Tribu in 2015, we where ready to purchase our first ever own home and my husband Ty found another “gem” of an opportunity that took us to South East Austin. La Tribu’s building was in the opposite side of town, north west. I commuted with both my babies back and forth during 4 long years. As Austin kept growing, the way back home would take us up to one hour and 15 minutes to go across town. Sometimes I would stop at a HEB and we would have “dinner” in the car.
I grew desperate to try to move my preschool closer to home, and it was then when we remembered about “White Bird” and the cozy rock house. We went ahead and decided to knock at the owner’s door, this time with a purchasing proposal. It turned out that the owner was ready to pass the torch of a Montessori based, outdoor oriented program to a younger leader, after 30 years of running her business.
We applied for an SBA loan that took us exactly 9 month to get approved and in motion, and involved a big remodeling process for the house, including a full HVAC system, cleaning floors and walls for asbestos and roof repairs.
La Tribu Rural was born in September 2019, and as a brand new small business survived the Covid Pandemic thanks to the support of the families that were enrolled at that time and the sacrifice of the team of teachers that reinvented themselves and its ways of teaching to sustain the project. We grew the program from 20 to 76 families, divided in 4 classrooms.
Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?
La Tribu’s main – and almost only- way of marketing is the word of mouth between families. When we opened La Tribu Rural, La Tribu north already had its reputation for being an effective place for children to learn Spanish while being cared for with lots of love and respect. The families were happy with the fact that the program promoted a good amount of academical content for children to feel inspired and growing in their abilities, and at the same time respected in their own individualities. The home away from home feeling promoted by the staff has been always a key engaging element for families with littles. At some point before the pandemic, we planted the seed to create a Cultural Center at the school. We offered yoga in Spanish for parents and children, lead by a Peruvian teacher. We also had a parent and me cooking class taught by an amazing spaniard teacher, a children baking class lead by an Argentinean cook and friend, an art class, a book class, and more. We also ruined a Parents Enrichment Program, hosting an specialist on a monthly basis to come educate us in all the topics of interest for early childhood: montessori at home, potty training, sleep and eating habits, child health from an homeopathic perspective, positive discipline, language acquisition and more.
With the help of the amazing community of parents, we would host filed trips and camp outs. One time, we brought an Argentinean educator and Artist and hosted our own music concert and teacher training. The training was about how to incorporate music and play within the day to day of the school. We can say we run the preschool as we would run a production company: always something fun for the families to participate at.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.latribuaustin.com
- Instagram: @latriburural
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/latribupreschool
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/la-tribu-rural/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpb6tStUdIZcveIbRTETpGQ
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/la-tribu-rural-austin