October 29, 2007
Kidco | A chat with Liz Leonard, co-founder of Parkside Children's Learning Center in Bangor.
Founded: January 2007
Employees: Leonard, her husband, Paul, and 18 full-time workers
Startup costs: $1.16 million
Projected revenue, year one: $720,000
Projected revenue, year two: $850,000
Contact: 941-2122
107 Maine Ave., Bangor 04401
www.parksideclc.com
Tell me about what you offer.
Parkside Children's Learning Center provides childcare for infants through age five. We have right now 117 children. We also offer before- and after-school care for ages five to 12, and a summer program.
Where did you get the idea for the center?
It was out of demand. We have two girls ˆ they're five and eight ˆ and there are not a lot of options in this area. When we did our market study, we toured centers in Bangor and it was very limited in terms of a [place] where you could [bring] your infant and have them build a relationship with their friends through age five.
We've been working on this project for over three years. We did a lot of research on what different franchises felt like, we toured a lot of centers in Portland, we went to Massachusetts, we went to New Hampshire, I went to California to tour centers there.
Eventually, you decided against franchising. Why?
Franchising felt like a cookie-cutter approach. We want to be unique. And the franchise piece, it was carved in stone what you were going to be doing. If you work with children, things change daily, things change hourly, and I felt that [franchising] put me in a situation where I wouldn't be able to make the best decisions for my center.
How did you design the curriculum?
Our curriculum we actually adopted from Children's Creative Learning Center [in Sunnyvale, Calif.]. It's trademarked and we purchased it from them, and we looked at a lot of different curriculums. What I liked about the Guided Discovery curriculum [from] Children's Creative Learning Centers is that it works. You see children engaged and enjoying it and you see teachers enjoying it. It's also very play-based. It's developmentally appropriate.
Did you consider designing your own curriculum?
I did not. Basically, with a startup business, you don't have a whole lot of time to put all of that in there. We were focused on getting the right location, getting the building, getting the loan, getting the staff.
How did you choose the location?
We looked at building a brand new building in this [business] park, so we had a site all reserved and then lo and behold, this building became available. There was a [request for proposal] for this building. So we went to probably six to eight city council meetings to get their approval for this. To get startup funding, we actually talked to three different banks and the one we started with first was the winner.
How do you market Parkside?
We do some local advertising in the Bangor Daily News. I try and do a lot of different events here [to draw] people to the center. We just did the family fun day in conjunction with Fusion: Bangor. We had over 350 people through our center. We're going to be doing a Halloween parade coming right up. We'll be inviting the media and any families that want to participate.
What are your plans for the future?
Within two to three years, we would like to apply for the [National Association of the Education of Young Children] accreditation. It has quality indicators that are standard throughout the country.
Our other focus ˆ and we haven't gone down this path ˆ but my vision for the future is to be an employer center. Which means an employer can work with us if they have employees who are having babies and need to return back to the workplace. They can have priority access into our center and the employer has employee retainment.
What was particularly challenging about the startup process?
Finding teachers that have a passion to work with young children is a challenge. We've got some great people ˆ they were hard to find though. We did recruitment ads in the Bangor Daily News. And also word of mouth. And we network with our families here and other teachers. We offer our teachers some health benefits, too, which is very important, and we [offer] sick time.
Employees: Leonard, her husband, Paul, and 18 full-time workers
Startup costs: $1.16 million
Projected revenue, year one: $720,000
Projected revenue, year two: $850,000
Contact: 941-2122
107 Maine Ave., Bangor 04401
www.parksideclc.com
Tell me about what you offer.
Parkside Children's Learning Center provides childcare for infants through age five. We have right now 117 children. We also offer before- and after-school care for ages five to 12, and a summer program.
Where did you get the idea for the center?
It was out of demand. We have two girls ˆ they're five and eight ˆ and there are not a lot of options in this area. When we did our market study, we toured centers in Bangor and it was very limited in terms of a [place] where you could [bring] your infant and have them build a relationship with their friends through age five.
We've been working on this project for over three years. We did a lot of research on what different franchises felt like, we toured a lot of centers in Portland, we went to Massachusetts, we went to New Hampshire, I went to California to tour centers there.
Eventually, you decided against franchising. Why?
Franchising felt like a cookie-cutter approach. We want to be unique. And the franchise piece, it was carved in stone what you were going to be doing. If you work with children, things change daily, things change hourly, and I felt that [franchising] put me in a situation where I wouldn't be able to make the best decisions for my center.
How did you design the curriculum?
Our curriculum we actually adopted from Children's Creative Learning Center [in Sunnyvale, Calif.]. It's trademarked and we purchased it from them, and we looked at a lot of different curriculums. What I liked about the Guided Discovery curriculum [from] Children's Creative Learning Centers is that it works. You see children engaged and enjoying it and you see teachers enjoying it. It's also very play-based. It's developmentally appropriate.
Did you consider designing your own curriculum?
I did not. Basically, with a startup business, you don't have a whole lot of time to put all of that in there. We were focused on getting the right location, getting the building, getting the loan, getting the staff.
How did you choose the location?
We looked at building a brand new building in this [business] park, so we had a site all reserved and then lo and behold, this building became available. There was a [request for proposal] for this building. So we went to probably six to eight city council meetings to get their approval for this. To get startup funding, we actually talked to three different banks and the one we started with first was the winner.
How do you market Parkside?
We do some local advertising in the Bangor Daily News. I try and do a lot of different events here [to draw] people to the center. We just did the family fun day in conjunction with Fusion: Bangor. We had over 350 people through our center. We're going to be doing a Halloween parade coming right up. We'll be inviting the media and any families that want to participate.
What are your plans for the future?
Within two to three years, we would like to apply for the [National Association of the Education of Young Children] accreditation. It has quality indicators that are standard throughout the country.
Our other focus ˆ and we haven't gone down this path ˆ but my vision for the future is to be an employer center. Which means an employer can work with us if they have employees who are having babies and need to return back to the workplace. They can have priority access into our center and the employer has employee retainment.
What was particularly challenging about the startup process?
Finding teachers that have a passion to work with young children is a challenge. We've got some great people ˆ they were hard to find though. We did recruitment ads in the Bangor Daily News. And also word of mouth. And we network with our families here and other teachers. We offer our teachers some health benefits, too, which is very important, and we [offer] sick time.
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