The birthdays at Our Beginning are no longer celebrated with organic ice cream. The school’s kitchen makes dairy-free, fruit-based sorbets. This sorbet was the first hint of the change that the Seattle-based day care’s founder, Paula Jones, had long planned.

“It’s been on my mind since Day 1,” she said: taking the school vegan.

The school always served organic, from-scratch meals for breakfast, lunch and snacks each day to its pupils, who range in age from 6 weeks to 5 years old. Lauri McCloud’s older child started at Our Beginning just after it first opened in 2010, and she and her husband chose it specifically for this chef-led food program. The couple want to raise “kids that ate everything,” she said.

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But Ms. Jones’s announcement at a parent council meeting on Aug. 16, 2018, said Noa Guter, whose two kids attend the school, seemed to be fast and final. As of Sept. 11, Ms. Jones told the crowd, Our Beginning would not serve any more meat, dairy or egg products, except for milk, which is required by Washington state law to be part of meals in child care centers.