For profit organizations showing signs of turnaround

FOR PROFIT CHILD CARE
Reprinted with permission from Exchange magazine. Visit us at www.ChildCareExchange.com or call (800) 221-2864.
Multiple use copy agreement available for educators by request.
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011 EXCHANGE
29
For profit organizations
showing signs of turnaround
Twenty-fourth annual Status Report on for profit child care
by Roger Neugebauer and Debra Hartzell
The year 2010 will not be remembered as
a banner year for large for profit child
care organizations. But it appears that
heading into 2011, optimism has
returned.
No growth at top continues
In 2010, the total capacity of the three
largest for profit chains in North America
(see the Exchange Top 50 on page 30),
KinderCare Learning Centers, Learning
Care Group, and Bright Horizons Family
Solutions declined slightly. This is a continuation of a trend that has held for the
past four years with their combined
capacity declining slightly each year
(see Growth of the Big Three Chains, on
page 32).
This does not, in any way, mean that
these three organizations are fading away.
In fact, the total capacity of these three
organizations is nearly double the total
licensed capacity of the next 47 organizations on the Top 50 list. You would probably need to include the next 400 largest
organizations in North America before
you could match the capacity of the big
three.
Franchise organizations playing
larger role
Back in the early 1970s when child care
centers were exploding onto the scene,
many of the original for profit chains,
including KinderCare, started out as
franchise ventures. The leaders of these
organizations soon discovered that it was
not possible to maintain quality control
over either the business or programmatic
aspects of franchised centers. So one by
one the players moving forward in the
industry shifted over to the companyowned model. By the mid-’80s the only
franchise operation of any size remaining
was Mary Moppets, which eventually
was purchased and dismantled.
By the mid-1990s our understanding of
the mechanics of successful early childhood businesses had improved greatly,
as had our ability to manage from afar
with technology. So in January 1991, we
find the first of a new wave of franchise
organizations, Primrose Schools, popping up on the Exchange Top 50. In the
coming two decades the number of franchise operators has multiplied and today
they oversee over 1,000 franchised centers (see National Child Care Franchising
Organizations).
2010: Year of living cautiously
Last year was a slow year for most Top
50 organizations. Although some organizations expanded, in total, licensed
capacity of the Top 50 remained flat.
Organizations held tight and focused on
improving quality of the centers they
already had in place. Some examples:
Sunrise Preschools: Our fabulous people are challenged to do more with less.
Children’s Friend: The economy continues to weigh heavy on our plans.
Children’s Choice has responded to the
current condition of the economy by
working closely with our sponsors and
our families to ensure that we are meeting the changing needs of the American
family. We have found that families
need more flexibility. Children and families are dealing with unusual amounts
of stress in the home and workplace,
and we have looked for creative ways to
address and reduce stress for them. We
have revisited the extra curricula programs that we offer our children to
ensure that they are consistent with our
goals. We had to listen to our families
more closely than ever to ensure that we
were meeting the specific needs of that
particular community of families. (Are
we planning events that are meaningful,
timely, and events that are not adding to
the stress of the family?) We have
worked hard to question the traditional
way of operating to ensure that we are
progressive, yet consistent, with what
we know children and families need
and want as they partner with us.
KinderCare Learning Centers: Leveraged expertise in primary and middle
school ECE programs to offer science
30
FOR PROFIT CHILD CARE
EXCHANGE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011
The Exchange Top 50
North America’s Largest For Profit Child Care Organizations
Organization
KinderCare Learning Centers
Learning Care Group, Inc.
Bright Horizons Family Solutions
Nobel Learning Communities, Inc.
Child Development Schools
Phoenix Children’s Academy
The Sunshine House
Minnieland Private Day School, Inc.
New Horizon Academy
CCLC Inc.
Children of America
Brightside Academy, Inc.
Crème de la Crème
Children’s Choice Learning Centers, Inc.
Sunrise Preschools
Children’s Friend, Inc.
Rainbow Child Care Centers
Hildebrandt Learning Centers, LLC
Action Day Nurseries/Primary Plus, Inc.
Country Home Learning Center
Creative World Schools
Stepping Stone School
Rainbow Station, Inc.
Acelero Learning
Pinecrest Schools
Ascendere, Inc.
Stratford School
Rogy’s Learning Place
Youthland Academy The Malvern School
*Tot-Time Child Development Centers, Inc.
StarChild Academy
Next Generation Children’s Centers
Creative Playrooms, Inc.
Sunny Daze, Inc.
Junior Academy Children’s Centers
*Valley Child Care & Learning Centers/Cactus Preschools
Kid’s Country, Inc.
The Children’s Workshop
Bobbie Noonan’s Child Care
Clockwork Learning The Kinderville Group
Doodle Bugs! Children’s Centers
Children’s Discovery Center, Inc.
Creative Child Care, Inc.
EduKids, Inc.
U-GRO Learning Centers
Children’s Corner Learning Centers
The Gardner School
K.I.D.S. Day Care
Headquarters
Portland, Oregon
Novi, Michigan
Watertown, Massachusetts
West Chester, Pennsylvania
Columbus, Georgia
Scottsdale, Arizona
Greenwood, South Carolina
Woodbridge, Virginia
Plymouth, Minnesota
Sunnyvale, California
Delray Beach, Florida
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Greenwood Village, Colorado
Richardson, Texas
Tempe, Arizona
Warner Robins, Georgia
Troy, Michigan
Dallas, Pennsylvania
San Jose, California
San Antonio, Texas
Bonita Springs, Florida
Austin, Texas
Glen Allen, Virginia
New York, New York
Sherman Oaks, California
Lawrenceville, New Jersey
Saratoga, California
Peoria, Illinois
Cincinnati, Ohio
Glen Mills, Pennsylvania
Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania
Apopka, Florida
Sudbury, Massachusetts
Solon, Ohio
Edmond, Oklahoma
Colorado Springs, Colorado
Phoenix, Arizona
Snohomish, Washington
Cumberland, Rhode Island
Frankfort, Illinois
Westport, Connecticut
Candiac, Quebec
Buffalo, New York
Maumee, Ohio
Bedford, Texas
Buffalo, New York
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
Tarrytown, New York
Brentwood, Tennessee
Westmount, Quebec
CEO
Centers
Felicia Thornton
1,641
James Howland (acting CEO)
1,036
David Lissy
730
George Bernstein
184
J. Scott Cotter
160
Douglas MacKay
115
Ed Follen
144
Charles W. Leopold
115
Chad Dunkley
86
Ty Durekas
102
Thad Prior
46
Mark Kehoe
49
Bruce Karpas
24
Donna McClintock
41
Robert Orsi
27
Dewayne Foskey
39
Patrick Fenton
33
William J. Grant
41
Carole J. Freitas
20
Sharon K. Ford
10
Billie McCabe
21
Rhonda Paver
18
Gail W. Johnson
9
Aaron Lieberman
32
Jeri Dye
10
Harsh Chadha
21
Matthew Wulfstat
11
Wendy Pettett, Dawn Meyer, and Rick Rogy
20
Amanda Bottleson and Courtney Berling
15
Joseph Scandone and Kristen Waterfield
20
Donna M. Fluehr
27
Cindy Zimmerman
6
Donna Kelleher
10
Joan Wenk
8
Mike North
11
Carroll Holden
32
James Emch and Mike Emch
10
Lynnda Langston
11
David B. MacDonald
15
Judith Nevell
13
David H. Lyme
12
Manishi Sagar
22
Anthony Insinna
9
Lois Rosenberry
8
Alex Little
12
Nancy Ware
12
Gregory T. Holsinger
11
Anthony Ross
10
Scott Thompson
6
Evelyn Wajcer
13
Capacity
218,300
156,110
80,000
28,500
22,874
21,000
20,023
13,814
13,032
12,343
9,000
7,840
7,000
6,902
5,653
5,629
4,600
4,325
4,450
4,180
3,550
3,374
3,131
3,054
3,000
2,984
2,900
2,884
2,875
2,847
2,672
2,441
2,200
2,047
1,950
1,872
1,830
1,758
1,712
1,700
1,668
1,524
1,510
1,448
1,367
1,262
1,256
1,181
1,170
1,061
Based soley on information supplied by the organizations. Data on capacity in chart above is the total licensed capacity for all centers as of January 1, 2011.
*Data from organizations marked with an asterisk are from the 2010 report.
curriculum throughout our centers.
Developed broader summer programs,
based on feedback and requests from
families.
The Children’s Workshop has undergone some very big and very exciting
changes in 2010! We’ve invested heavily
in our facilities, vehicles, and most
importantly, our staff. New vans,
improved interiors, and bigger and better playgrounds — we’ve been busy
giving our buildings a face lift, but
we’ve been hiring many great new
teachers and administrators, too. We’ve
made some changes in our upper level
management and are in the process of
improving our curriculum as well. The
company has made a commitment to
get more involved with our communities.
Bright Horizons Family Solutions:
2010 has been a key year for investing
smartly in our people and our systems,
and toward that end, we implemented a
series of initiatives focusing on the
health and wellness of the children in
our care, our faculty, our communities,
and our planet. All of these initiatives
are among those that will play a large
role in our plans for 2011 and beyond
and reinforce our mission. We are also
proud to recently have been named the
#1 Best Place to Work by our hometown
FOR PROFIT CHILD CARE
newspaper, The Boston Globe, for our
commitment to employees and to each
other and for being a “Caring Company.” . . . Our Going Green initiative,
part of the Toward a Better World program, is also a core focus both in the
classrooms and at the administrative
levels of our centers and our organization. Well Aware is Bright Horizons’
approach to health, fitness, and wellness. It has components focused both on
curriculum for children, as well as how
we care for employees with a renewed
emphasis on wellness programs through
our practices and benefits offerings. . . .
We also introduced in 2010 a variety of
new Awards of Excellence to honor
employees for their contributions to
“Caring for Others,” practicing our
HEART Principles, Community Service,
Diversity Champions, Environmental
Champions, Excellence in Care and
Education, Family Partnerships, Client
Partnerships, and Rising Stars in the
Field.. . . 2010 we launched a learning
management software platform to
increase our capabilities within Bright
Horizons University (BHU), our greatest
and most tangible way of reinforcing
our commitment to ongoing training
and development and continuing contribution to the professional growth of
Bright Horizons teachers.
Creme de la Crème offered parenting
seminars in all markets on social emotional development based on the book
How to Raise Emotionally Healthy Children
by Dr. Gerald Newmark.
Rogy’s Learning Place: We added a new
building for one of our locations in Normal, Illinois. It is a beautiful building
that has a turf surface for all the playgrounds with a water feature for outside
play. How cool is that!!
Kiddie Academy Domestic Franchising:
We have focused on customer
service and further integration of
technology within our schools.
Children’s Discovery Center: Several
members of our team have collaborated,
and with Dr. Sandra Duncan, have coauthored the book, Inspiring Spaces for
Young Children and its companion, Rating
Observation Scale for Inspiring Spaces. We
are planning to expand into training,
consulting, and developing products to
enhance early childhood environments.
The Gardner School: We have invested
in our employees and are offering a
much more enriched benefit program.
We will be offering a company match for
our 401K.
Largest National Child Care Franchising Organizations
Organization
*Goddard Systems, Inc.
Primrose Schools Franchising Company
Kids R Kids International
The Learning Experience
Kiddie Academy Domestic Franchising
Discovery Point Franchising
Children’s Lighthouse *Legacy Academy for Children, Inc.
Youthland Academy (Franchise)
Headquarters
King of Prussia, Pennsylvania
Acworth, Georgia
Duluth, Georgia
Boca Raton, Florida
Abingdon, Maryland
Duluth, Georgia
Fort Worth, Texas
Sugar Hill, Georgia
Cincinnati, Ohio
*Data from organizations marked with an asterisk are from the 2010 report.
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JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011 EXCHANGE
CEO
Joe Schumacher
Jo Kirchner
Patrick D. Vinson
Michael H. Weissman
Michael J. Miller
Clifford Clark
G. Michael Brown, Sr.
Melissa & Frank Turner
Amanda Bottleson/Courtney Berling
Centers
370
225
155
110
109
59
29
20
8
Capacity
45,000
41,000
38,500
18,480
16,194
13,275
6,996
5,000
1,560
Based solely on information supplied by the organizations.
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FOR PROFIT CHILD CARE
EXCHANGE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011
Children’s Lighthouse: Went ‘green’ in
our centers throughout the nation.
Chose Ronald McDonald House as our
national charity of choice.
Youthland Academy: For the past two
years, Youthland Academy has implemented a new curriculum for our preschool and toddler programs. Due to the
success of those programs, our curriculum coordinator has developed a program for our infants. This will be introduced in a few of our centers late 2010
and fully used by all by early 2011.
2011: The optimism returns
In looking ahead to 2011, 24 of the Top
50 organizations, including two of the
‘big three,’ reported to Exchange that
they planned to add new centers in
2011. Here is what some of them had to
say:
Clockwork Learning: We have come out
of the very tight past couple years and
have found that certain schools have
increased enrollment consistently each
month, while others have been slow. We
expect next year to be very strong with
growth both in tuition/enrollments, but
also school acquisition within the tristate area.
CCLC: Many of our global clients are
evaluating opportunities to partner with
us in countries where they have employees. We have seen a resurgence in new
center opportunities and are working
with many new clients who would prefer not to operate their own child care
centers in the future. This includes providing dedicated backup child care centers in key markets.
Hildebrandt Learning Centers: Our
focus in 2010 was transforming our
company from a small organization into
a small/medium provider. This transformation included development of staff to
continue to deliver high quality programs to our families. With these
enhancements we feel we now can
move to 60 to 70 centers in the next five
years.
Child Development Schools: We will
likely experience an ownership change
by the end of 2010 or early 2011. With
this change, we fully expect to restart
our center acquisition program.
Stepping Stone School: We will be adding another child development center
and continue to look for growth opportunities moving forward.
Rainbow Child Care Centers: Organic
build upon existing footprints of
schools. Entering a new territory in the
southern region of the United States.
Capitalize on the increasing importance
of early education for children and to
provide a high level of service in additional communities.
Exchange will be back in January 2012
with our Twenty-Fifth Annual Trend
Report to explore how all these fine
plans work out.
Doodle Bugs! Children’s Centers: In
2011, we will be opening our fourth
center in Rochester, New York, and first
out-of-state location in Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania. We will also be launching
our franchising program in Florida,
Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Maryland.
Acelero Learning: We have begun operations in Pennsylvania as well as in new
parts of New Jersey.
Children of America continues to grow
in strategic locations which we will continue to do in the coming years. We are
currently located in 12 states.
Growth of the Big Three Chains
Total licensed capacity (in thousands) for three largest for profit child care organizations.
KinderCare
Learning Care Group
Bright Horizons
combined capacity
2008
250
162
73
485
2009
232
163
73
468
2010
227
157
77
461
2011
218
156
80
454