History of OFS

Dr. Dorothy Stewart and her husband, Bob Buhl, combined their life-long dream and passion for the attachment and Reggio Emilia inspired education model, founding Old Firehouse School in Lafayette in 1996. The running and opening of more campuses became a true family affair with daughter Jackie Buhl working alongside her parents.  After Dorothy’s passing in 2025, her legacy continues to live on through the work of Jackie and Bob, who are dedicated to keeping her dream of high-quality, child centered education going.

Old Firehouse School (OFS) has accomplished much over the last 30 years, winning the Bay Area Parent Readers Choice award for 'Best Preschool' in the East Bay consecutive years!

Old Firehouse is renowned throughout California and annually hosts approximately 300 educators who travel from as far as Guatemala, just to study our educational methods as well as review our award-willing facilities.

The success of Lafayette inspired the Stewart-Buhl family to open more branches of OFS. Less than 10 years after its inception, in the Fall of 2004, OFS opened its second school in Mill Valley, CA and then following close behind, the third school in beautiful Walnut Creek, CA. In 2022, we opened a campus in downtown San Rafael, where we are excited to offer a Spanish-English bilingual emphasis at this school alongside our established attachment-based and Reggio Emilia-based programs. In September of 2024, we opened yet another school—the wildlife/nature Bayview school in San Rafael.

We are receiving wonderful accolades from parents and the community, alike. We currently have over 200 families enrolled in our five schools. 

Old Firehouse is nationally recognized for its Staff Stability Plan, which is partially responsible for inspiring child/caregiver relationships and its extremely low staff turnover.