The Rhode Island College Cooperative Preschool was originally known as the Cooperative Playgroup before achieving preschool status. It was brought to campus to give Rhode Island College faculty, staff and students an affordable childcare center. The Cooperative Preschool was under the direction of Rhode Island College’s Student Community Government. Due to the organization being under the funding direction of this organization, lack of revenue eventually led to the Cooperative Preschools shutdown in the spring of 2024.
This collection includes meeting minutes from different boards and executive committees; history of the Cooperative Preschool as well as licenses, inspections, certifications, letters and reports regarding the closure of the school; restricted financial information relating to all aspects of the Preschool's operations and receipts; photographs; and memorabilia including plaques and banners.
Rhode Island College holds copyright to materials in the collection created by the RIC Cooperative Preschool. Researchers are advised to contact Rhode Island College Special Collections for questions regarding permissions to reproduce, distribute, or otherwise publish material from this collection. Reproductions of photographs may be restricted.
The collection is open for research. However, Series 3: Financial Information is restricted due to the presence of potential personally identifiable information, i.e., check numbers and bank account information. Please contact Special Collections at least two weeks prior to needing access to that series so we can redact appropriately. Other materials in Series 2: History, Licenses, and Closure are restricted due to similar personally identifiable information being present.
Rhode Island College Cooperative Preschool records, CA-0135, Special Collections, James P. Adams Library, Rhode Island College.
This collection has been arranged into the following series:
The collection was donated by employees and volunteers of the Rhode Island College Cooperative Preschool in 2024. A transfer agreement was signed by Mathew Jacques, then president of Rhode Island College Student Community Government.
The collection was arranged and described by Rey Plante in 2025 under the supervision of Digital Archivist and Special Collections Librarian, Veronica L. Denison.
Two CDs of Student Community Government meetings are available to view on the Special Collections Reading Room computer, and the CDs themselves remain within the collection. The RIC Cooperative Preschool website was crawled in 2024 prior to its removal from the Rhode Island College website. The website is available via the Special Collections instance of Archive-It: https://archive-it.org/collections/23105.
This series includes meeting minutes from different executive boards running the Rhode Island College Cooperative Preschool, as well as attendance sheets from these meetings.
This series includes the history of the co-op through newspaper clippings, photographs, and SCG documents. It also includes licenses, nonprofit and building logistics, as well as documents and letters leading up to the closing of the Preschool. Restricted material includes financial information with bank account and check numbers, student assignments including pictures and names, as well as contact sheets identifying parents to their children, along with their addresses. Photos in this collection are restricted for replication.
Electronic access only via Special Collections Reading Room or by request
Available through the Special Collections’ instance of Archive-It under
This series includes financial information for the Preschool ranging from memos to invoices, tax and donation information, tuition payment records, receipts, contracts, etc. The items in this series are restricted due to the sensitive material that could allow identification of the individuals included such as bank accounts, check numbers, etc.
This collection includes physical memorabilia and photographs regarding the Rhode Island College Cooperative Preschool. Reproductions of photographs are restricted.