RIDGEFIELD — Two local teachers have launched a new business that offers at-home learning opportunities for preschool-aged children.
Back in 2015, KT Tidwell and Melanie Hanes started Sprouts Academy, a preschool program for children ages 3 and up in Hanes’ house. Three years ago, they moved into their current location within the Footprints Church of the Nazarene in Ridgefield.
“We became friends through church and then started a preschool together,” Hanes said. “We just work really well together. We both have different strengths and so it seems like whatever we do, KT does good at half of it, and I’m really good at the other half.”
When the pandemic shut down normal day-to-day operations, Hanes and Tidwell began experimenting with remote learning options. After sending out activities and resources to the families at Sprouts Academy, Tidwell said that almost immediately people began asking when they would be sharing their curriculum with a larger audience.
Thus Joey School, a subscription-based program offering at-home learning resources for preschool-aged children, was born.
Each month, parents receive a box complete with a curriculum book and various activities to teach children everything from literacy to fine motor skills. The subscription also offers a resources page that has videos for how to do the art projects, singing and dancing, and a blog page that has tips for parents, Hanes said.
Boxes are $99 a month and will be shipped out at the beginning of each month. The first boxes began arriving at homes this week, and Tidwell said nearly all of the 100 boxes have already been claimed. Parents interested in learning more can visit their website at www.joeyschool.com.
Clark County resident Kami Hampton, who’s a mother of three, is one of the parents who signed up for the Joey School program. Earlier this summer, Tidwell and Hanes asked Hampton and several other parents to test their boxes. Hampton and her 4-year-old son were happy to oblige.
“You do have a lot of other options, but it gets overwhelming really fast,” Hampton said. “Using the Joey box just simplifies everything and you don’t have to worry about missing out on anything because I feel like they made it an overall good curriculum for the kids.”
According to Child Care Aware of Washington, a nonprofit that assists families in finding licensed child care and early learning programs, almost 25 percent of the state’s child care programs have closed either temporarily or permanently since the start of the pandemic. At the start of 2020, there were 230 licensed child care programs in Clark County, 54 of which have closed.
CEO Deeann Puffert said the closures are due to a variety of reasons, ranging from concerns of exposure to COVID-19 to simply not having enough children to care for. However, she said the main reasons are financial concerns.
“Licensed child care providers prior to the pandemic were barely making it work with a full capacity of paying clients,” Puffert said. “Now because of fewer clients and the COVID-19 requirements, you need a higher staff-to-child ratio, so many programs are deciding to close because they can’t make it work financially.”
No one size fits all
Jodi Wall, executive director of early care and education at Educational Service District 112, said that despite the uncertainty of the times we’re living in, many families still want or need child care and early learning opportunities. ESD 112 serves as the regional office for Child Care Aware of Washington.
“We have a variety of models in the area so parents who are looking for a part-day preschool program and parents who are looking for more of a full-day or six-hour program and child care have options,” Wall said. “We just do our best to make sure we’re answering questions, while parents think about what it is they’re looking for, what their own needs are, what their child’s needs are and what program may be the best.”
Wall said there’s not a one-size-fits-all model and so she encouraged parents to reach out to organizations such as Child Care Aware of Washington to find a program that fits their needs. While many programs are operating remotely in a similar fashion to Joey School, there are still in-person child care opportunities available.
Wall stressed the importance of early childhood education. She said research shows that a lot of critical brain development occurs in the first five years of life, and that early childhood education can lead to higher quality of life later on.
“Anybody who’s spent time with a child from birth to 5 knows that they are learning so many new skills,” Wall said. “Ranging from crawling, walking, to talking and critical thinking and forming their own ideas and opinions.”
As for Hanes and Tidwell, they plan on expanding their program in the future to better serve older children and children with disabilities. They acknowledged how parents may feel overwhelmed right now but encouraged them to approach remote learning with confidence.
“The reason I love teaching preschoolers is because they do not judge you at all,” Hanes said. “You just have to come with your smile on your face and be super high energy and get down on the floor with them and they’re going to have a good time.”
“To the moms: they can fake it till they make it,” Tidwell added. “As long as they’re confident and down on the floor like Melanie said, their kids are going to be happy.”
