About Us
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 on for a life-long love of learning.
A Loving Place to Play & Learn, St. Mark’s Experience
The Day School’s philosophy is a play-based preschool. We believe that children learn best through exploration and hands-on activities that are age and developmentally appropriate. Learning through play supports the whole child as they grow socially, emotionally, physically, and academically. By children "doing" and "experiencing" through the guidance of our teachers they are constructing internal building blocks for both personal growth and life skills, with the greatest benefits coming from a child's body and mind working together. One of our key goals is to provide small classroom sizes for the success of our students and experienced staff. Student-Teacher Ratios for our two’s classrooms is 10 students to 2 teachers, for our three’s classrooms is 12 students to 2 teachers and our pre-kindergarten classrooms is 15 students to 2 teachers. It is our commitment to provide a loving, respectful, and joyful place for all children to play, learn, and grow.
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.
Our beautiful campus with an extensive playground 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 playground with a swing area, multiple forts and playhouses, and sand play area are used daily to provide for your child’s growth, imagination, and exercise.
We offer classes for 2 year olds, 3 year olds, and pre-kindergarten. Children must be at least 2 years old by September 1st of the academic year in order to be eligible. Thank you for considering St. Mark’s Episcopal Day School for your child's preschool. You may call the office if you have any questions at (512) 444-9401 or email schooloffice@stmarksdayschoolaustin.org.
Perspective on play based learning from Former Pre-K Teacher, Ms. Teresa ~
I love watching your kids interact and play! They are so creative and imaginative!
We often think of play as something children naturally do, but it is also the way in which they learn best. Play is self-initiated and directed and is fun! Children develop cognitively and socially as well as develop gross motor and fine motor skills and self-regulation. There is a lot going on during play! At outdoor time the children have been playing 'hair salon', jaguar and family, read more...
Testimonials
"I want to say thank you. St. Marks and you have been our bright shining light during such a challenging time. We feel so blessed to be a part of such a wonderful community. Our daughter comes home happy every single day and she looks forward to each day ahead. She's learning and growing so much. Thank you for all that you do. We are so very fortunate to have you!"
"We feel so lucky to be a part of the St. Mark's community. Our daughter loves going to school every day and comes home singing new songs and saying new things daily. We believe that early education sets the foundation for loving learning and St. Mark's accoomplishes that with their amazing teachers, and focus on nature, art and play."
"I just wanted to share with you how your teaching has prepared our daughter for kindergarten- even during this virtual time. She had a virtual reading assessment with her teacher today, and she knew all her letters+sounds, knew some sight words, and was able to sound out other words. Her teacher was so pleased with how well she was already beginning to read! She asked what school she went to before kindergarten and we shared we were a part of St. Mark's. She wrote it down and said "that is so good to know so that when parents ask me for school recommendations, I can tell them St. Mark's prepares young readers". What an amazing compliment! We were so proud, and we are so thankful for you both for all the wonderful teaching you do to prepare these children. We miss St. Mark's so much, and we hope to see you all soon! I hope your school year is off to a great start!!"
