Treating students like her own fuels growth

GROWING UP: Lynsey Colgan, owner of A Child’s University, is planning to expand from a day care business with a kindergarten program in fall 2014. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL PERSSON
GROWING UP: Lynsey Colgan, owner of A Child’s University, is planning to expand from a day care business with a kindergarten program in fall 2014. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL PERSSON

One of Lynsey Colgan’s current goals is to “find a curriculum for the new kindergarten program.”
That’s just how she is, always writing down her goals, always pushing to the next level. That’s how her business, A Child’s University, grew from a small, early childhood education center in Cranston in 2002 to two centers with 155 children, a waiting list and a planned expansion into their first kindergarten program in fall 2014.
“I really thought if parents could watch their children, it would be cool,” said Colgan, who thought of the idea when they were starting the school. It wasn’t just about safety, but a way for parents who had to spend hours away from their children to get a glimpse of what the little ones were doing now and then.
A Child’s University enrolls children from 6 weeks to 6 years old, a bit of a leap from where Colgan started in education. She majored in secondary education at Rhode Island College and taught eighth grade for one year. Then her new path beckoned to her out of the eighth-grade classroom.
Colgan had taken a few business classes in college. She wasn’t sure where they might lead, she was just interested.
“I think I’m a little bit of a control freak. … I wanted to be in charge of my own vision and my own destiny,” said Colgan. “Owning your own business is your chance to do it like that – to wake up every day and say I’m going to do it the very best I can do it.”
In all aspects of running the school, Lynsey and husband/partner Jay Colgan set the highest possible expectations based on best practices from a wide range of businesses. In nominating his wife for a business award, he wrote: “She borrows customer-experience techniques from the [Walt Disney Co.]. She uses marketing ideas employed by Starbucks. When it comes to managing her “team members,” she follows successful strategies developed by Target. She pulls the best aspects of these leading companies and blends them into her business.”
While they might have launched a variety of businesses together, they enjoyed providing a good environment for young children.
“I think we loved the purity of this field, that we could impact children,” she said.
“Sometimes in this field we get a reputation as day care. But we’re by no means just putting children in a swing or a bouncy seat,” said Colgan.
“The babies are painting at 6 weeks old. We put paint on their hands and feet,” she said.
The teachers are critical for the high-level learning environment, said Colgan. The school has 80 employees, most of them full time.
All the lead teachers have a degree in either elementary or early-childhood education. For the other teachers who don’t have either of those degrees, the company pays for them to study and get certification in child development.
Providing a quality environment for young children always has been more than just a job. But since they’ve had their own children, the meaning of their work is even deeper, she said.
“Being a mom and my family mean everything to me,” said Colgan. “Our school aligns with that. I feel all these children are my children and I want to give them what I give my own children.”

No posts to display