Our Mission
St. Mark’s Episcopal Day School provides a safe, nurturing, and joyous community for children to experience and develop compassion, empathy, and creativity; to learn about and engage with the natural world; and to build a foundation for a life-long love of learning.
Our Philosophy
Our goal is to be that positive first step in a child’s educational journey and to inspire a love for school and learning. We focus on the whole child: academic readiness and cognitive development, as well as emotional, social, and spiritual growth.
Our curriculum is child-focused and is presented in an enriched environment that encourages creativity and curiosity while fostering self-esteem. Teachers scaffold student learning and provide additional challenges and opportunities in all areas of development. Students expand their unique creativity and motor skills through music, creative movement, dance and art. The curriculum at St. Mark's is process-oriented and considers the developmental readiness of each individual child.
Classroom Ratios
One of our primary objectives is to maintain small class sizes to ensure student success and support our experienced staff. We adhere to specific Student-Teacher ratios: 10:2 in our two-year-old classrooms, 12:2 in our three-year-old classrooms, and 15:2 in our pre-kindergarten classrooms. We are committed to creating a nurturing, respectful, and joyful environment where all children can play, learn, and grow
Our Episcopalian Identity
The Day School is a SAES accredited preschool program. Children attend chapel once-a-week to learn of God's love and mercy; instilling upon them values to encourage their role in our community. Chapel offers an understanding of Episcopalian Christian values through story-telling, dramatic play, and singing. We welcome and encourage participation in our weekly church services, but membership in St. Mark’s church is not a requirement for admission.
Nestled in Nature
Our beautiful campus is tucked in the South Austin neighborhood of Barton Hills nestled in the Barton Creek Greenbelt, near Zilker Park, South Lamar, and convenient to downtown. Our unique nature-based play area maintains the beauty and integrity of the environment leveraging natural materials.
The playground includes a swing area, a beloved pirate ship, mud kitchen, and water play station, all of which are used daily to foster our students’ growth and imagination through free exploration, discovery and play.