Action Day Schools to launch new preschool in Almaden Valley

Action Day Schools will open a brand-new campus in San Jose’s Almaden Valley this fall, the latest addition to an educational concept founded nearly 60 years ago.

Focused on infants through pre-K, the school will provide youngsters nutritious meals, a specialized innovation hub and Spanish language exploration. The Blossom Hill location is Action Day’s 14th campus, joining a child development hub that serves roughly 3,000 students ranging in age from infancy through eighth grade. In addition to San Jose, Action Day has campuses in Campbell, Saratoga and Mountain View.

It’s a gratifying moment for 92-year-old John Freitas, who founded Action Day School almost 60 years ago with his late wife, Carole. “The school was really her baby,” he says.

A professor who taught childhood development at San Jose City College in 1968, Carole Freitas saw women entering the workforce in record numbers and understood the need for quality childcare. She envisioned a place that would combine nurturing care with educational enrichment.

“Carole was extremely knowledgeable about early childhood education, and it was her dream to start her own preschool,” Freitas recalls.

As with many Silicon Valley start-ups, the beginnings were humble. There were just six students at first, but the program began to grow almost immediately. The couple borrowed money—some from the bank, some from their parents—and bought a house in Santa Clara, filling it with pint-sized furniture made from cardboard and crafting an outdoor play structure from old utility poles.

John was a full-time teacher at Homestead High School in Cupertino, and Carole kept teaching nights, but they both poured every extra hour they had into building their education program. Their goal was to focus on the “whole child,” a philosophy that embraced not just cognitive development but social, emotional and physical development as well.

In the ensuing years, the Action Day organization has blossomed, its growth paralleling the rise of the Silicon Valley innovation machine. In the late 1960s, Freitas had left a corporate career in pharmaceuticals, working on the first polio vaccine, to teach physiology and biology at Homestead High. Several members of the Silicon Valley elite, including Steve Jobs, passed through his classroom. One of his students was Nobel Prize winner Fred Ramsdell, who was honored last year for his trailblazing insights into the human immune system.

“Mr. Freitas was the first person to highlight the way to actually study science, including the structure and organization of the scientific process; I was always curious about nature, but he taught me how to think about questions in a productive way,” Ramsdell remembers.

“John and Carole always believed that children are capable of extraordinary things,” says Action Day president Cathy Jelic.

Initially an Action Day after-school and dance teacher, Jelic transformed the school’s dance program into the stand-alone West Valley Dance company, which now has three locations and 5,000 students.

It’s all part of the “whole child” philosophy that formed the core of the Freitas’ vision in 1968 and continues its through-line at the latest Action Day campus.

“From infancy through middle school, our job is to nurture confident, curious and resilient learners,” Jelic says. “Our guiding light is giving children opportunities to discover who they are and prepare them for a successful future.”

Action Day School’s new campus is located at 1250 Blossom Hill Road in San Jose. For enrollment information, call 699-250-0150.