Cross-Town Express

This article was originally published in the Winter 2025 issue of the GFS Bulletin.

As the yellow school bus rumbled to a stop at the front steps of GFS’ Main Campus, the preschoolers in line were excited, and a little nervous. For some of these two- and three-year-olds, this trip to GFS’ Early Childhood Center City Campus in the Curtis Center would be their first time riding a school bus. With the gentle guidance of the teachers, the student filed on and buckled up, preparing for the 10-mile drive from Coulter Street to 601 Walnut Street through the clear October morning. 

Community Day Campus Swaps allow GFS preschoolers and PreK students to spend time with their partner classrooms. Each month, one grade from Main Campus buses into the city, and the other grade comes to Germantown. Different versions of this exchange have existed since GFS’s Center City Campus opened in 2017. 

“We started out bringing the Center City students to Main Campus, because we know it's important for these children and their families to feel a part of GFS, but we didn’t want it to be just a one-way trip,” said Director of Early Childhood Sarah McMenamin. “Our campus in the Curtis Center is a lovely space and there are so many opportunities downtown, so two years ago, we switched it up and started completely exchanging.”

During this Campus Swap, the first one of the year, the preschoolers gathered for singing time, snack, and free play with blocks and toys. While some students felt shy or stuck to familiar faces, others branched out to make new friends.

Jenny Taylor, a preschool teacher at Main Campus, says that over the year the students always warm up to each other, and by the spring, bonds form between the children. 

“They’re often more timid on this initial visit because we don't know the space and we don't know the other children, but the more we go, the more we forge our community,” she said. “We also pair up students as pen pals, and they do projects together when they visit each other’s classrooms.”

Center City teacher Shar Heck adds that the Campus Swaps pave the way for the students’ friendships when they begin Kindergarten together. 

“It’s meaningful and special to have the opportunity to see and meet friends in our partner classes that the children will eventually blend with as they enter Lower School,” she said. “We want to start the relationships now, so building on them later is a smooth transition.” 

Mid-morning, the preschoolers took seats on the fuzzy rug in EC Center City’s library area for Meeting for Worship. Heck read Maybe Something Beautiful, a colorful book about a community creating a mural together. The students quietly listened, then settled into a few minutes of silence, a skill they continue building throughout their time in GFS’ Early Childhood program. 

When the Center City students visit Main Campus, they have Meeting for Worship in the Meetinghouse. It’s just one of the ways that these visits help acquaint them with the school’s bigger, bustling campus in Germantown. In just a few short months, McMenamin has observed, the Center City students start to know the lay of the land.

“By the time the Early Childhood Spring Performance rolls around, the Center City kids can show their parents around,” she noted.

By contrast, when the Main Campus students visit the city, they get to practice skills, like holding onto the walking rope and safely crossing the street, and enjoy playing in some of Philadelphia’s historic parks like the Rose Garden, Magnolia Garden, and Independence Square Park. 

The experience is enriching for the EC faculty, as well, Heck noted.

“Coming together reminds us that we aren’t alone on our respective campuses, and provides a time for us to reconnect with each other, laugh, and form relationships,” she said.  

The day of this visit, the students and teachers headed across the street to Washington Square Park after Meeting for Worship. In a sunny rectangle of grass, delineated by boundaries set up by the teachers, students blew bubbles, played tag, and took turns looking at birds and squirrels through binoculars. Others, inspired by the book they’d read, made a colorful chalk mural on the brick wall along 7th Street.

“We worked together to add color to our own community here in Center City,” Heck said. “The mural was still there a week later!”

—Emily Kovach