As the Puddle Jumpers Workshop in the Polish Club at Shotwell and 22nd streets prepared to close its doors in June, teacher Michele Menard reached for her puppets.
Menard, an artist and trained puppeteer, has used the puppets to help generations of children navigate the complicated emotions of growing up and saying goodbye.
At the co-op school’s closing ceremony, Menard spun the story of a spoiled princess in a tutu who discovers she already has everything she needs: Friends and family who love her.
That, Menard said, was the heart of Puddle Jumpers’ mission.
“It created a long-lasting, deep community, and to miss it means that we all did a wonderful job creating something with love,” Menard said.
A co-op tradition
Puddle Jumpers grew out of the legacy of Little People’s Workshop, a Noe Valley childcare co-op founded in 1975. When Little People’s lost its lease in 2008, parents from the school rented a new home inside the Polish Club in the Mission.
Unlike larger cooperative preschools, which are typically licensed nonprofits supported by parent fundraising, Puddle Jumpers was unlicensed, and kept prices relatively low by having parents handle everything from finances and legal matters to staffing, enrollment, and daily operations.
Menard worked with different teachers over the years to create the curriculum, and led twice-daily outings with the children.
The parental work requirements could be as time-intensive as a part-time job. But the school filled a gap for families seeking affordable, full-time care for children under age 3.
“It was a wonderfully odd, beautiful little social experiment that we all somehow survived and ended up loving so much,” said Hinnie Chan, who served as treasurer while her son attended from 2019 to 2020.
Expanding childcare subsidies change the childcare game
The city’s newest expansion of childcare and preschool subsidies has been good news for many parents. Announced in January 2026, it provides free access to licensed childcare centers for families earning less than $230,000, and 50-percent subsidies for those making up to $310,000.
The expansion also has proved to be tough competition for unlicensed childcare centers. Puddle Jumpers became unable to attract enough parents to keep the operation running.
“Now you can get cheaper care at most other places without working at all,” said Cole Rose, the outgoing co-op chair whose two children attended the program.
The project is gone, the community remains
Still, Puddle Jumpers will be fondly remembered.
For years, the red buggies of Puddle Jumpers were a familiar sight in the Mission, with a rolling group of toddlers waving to neighbors as they explored the neighborhood. The groups often encountered former Puddle Jumpers at Parque Niños Unidos community garden, who would stop to give Menard a hug.
Parents said the benefits of the community-care model for children and families were clear.
The school mirrored the diversity of the neighborhood itself. Conversations flowed among languages — English, Mandarin, Spanish, Arabic — and meals reflected the same cultural mix, with homemade dumplings and empanadas alongside toddler staples like goldfish crackers.
“We were so grateful that Puddle Jumpers existed,” said Sean Mahan, whose son attended from 2015 to 2016. “Working shifts made me a better parent: It was fun and reassuring to see other kids the same age with their varying personalities, abilities, and developmental moments.”
Parents said that kind of connection was difficult to find in a traditional drop-off preschool, where families may share a classroom but never truly know one another.
“When we joined, we were new parents and had few friends who also had kids,” said Ana Holland, who served as chair of the co-op during her daughter’s time there, from 2023 to 2024. “When we found Puddle Jumpers, we also found a community that felt like family.”
Menard, who worked at Puddle Jumpers for 16 years, has taken a new role across town as director of the Haight Ashbury Cooperative Nursery School, another long-standing San Francisco co-op. But she said Puddle Jumpers will remain part of her life.
“Puddle Jumpers gave us all the tools to expand community beyond the walls of the Polish Club,” she said. “Community is community without borders.”
