Fremont Children’s Academy celebrates 15 year anniversary – Fremont Tribune

But after finding a for-rent sign outside of a building in northwest Fremont, the 22-year-old decided out of the blue that she would tour the building and create something herself.

“I had absolutely no idea about anything about daycare, and I had really only set foot in a daycare center maybe once at that point in my life,” she said. “But somehow, things just kind of fell into place, and I decided that this was the path that I was supposed to pursue.”

Ross would eventually found Fremont Children’s Academy, which will celebrate its 15th anniversary this Saturday. The daycare center is at 2436 N. Colorado Ave.

Before finding the building that would become the daycare center, Ross was working with the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services doing family support working, including taking children to visits and working on reunification after being removed from their parents.

“I kept praying that I would get a solution for my kids to go to daycare,” she said. “And the Lord put it on my heart that I was supposed to pursue this opportunity, and so I set up an appointment to come and tour the building.”

Ross soon started doing research on child care licensing and started the process to get the building set up. She applied for a loan with First National Bank and applied for a grant through the State of Nebraska.

“The building was very expensive, and so I had to sell a lot of my belongings in order to put down a down payment, but I did get approved for a loan at First National after I put together a business plan and everything, which was something new to me,” Ross said.

Soon after, Ross was awarded a grant of just shy under $10,000 for the daycare center.

“Things were just falling into place, and so I continued each day on the path while I was still working for DHHS doing work there,” she said. “And then I also started babysitting some children in my home during the day to kind of get some experience, but also to have an additional income.”

While she started the daycare center as a way to provide an educational program for her children, Ross said she also felt the need to help other children as well.

“I felt Fremont children definitely needed, and especially working with children that are involved with [Child Protective Services], they need a high-quality daycare center to go to during the day to teach them all of the skills necessary in order to enter kindergarten well-rounded and not be at a disadvantage, walking into a kindergarten classroom and not having ever had a classroom experience before,” she said.

To get approved with licensing, Ross said she had to be prepared at all times for the fire marshal, sanitation department and child care licensing.

Not knowing how many students would show up on the first day, Ross hired 11 full-time teachers and had an open house.

“At that point, we were licensed for 88, and our first day, we had 15 students start,” she said. “And we thought that was incredible.”

Although her position with the center is director, Ross said she had to wear many hats at first as staff members decided if they would stay on with the center.

“I did all of the cooking, I did all of the running for the school-age group to and from school, I would stay in a classroom in between teachers’ breaks or maybe in the afternoon until I had to go get the schoolkids,” she said. “So I definitely took the role of several people wherever possible just because of financial reasons in order to stay afloat with having a low enrollment.”

But by the end of the first year, Fremont Children’s Academy had grown to serve 66 students.

“We went back to having our 11 full-time staff and then a couple part-time college staff as well,” Ross said. “So it grew very quickly.”

In 2007, Ross was able to purchase Fremont Children’s Academy’s building from its landlord. To accommodate the influx of students, the center expanded from 3,400 square feet to 7,000 square feet in 2012, licensing it for 134 students.

“We completely redid all of our lobby to add personal lockers for all of the students, we remodeled the office area, we added two brand-new baby rooms and also a gym and then our playgrounds,” Ross said. “So basically, we were able to almost double the usable space for our building for the students.”

For the center’s families that it serves, Ross said Fremont Children’s Academy has three main components they enjoy, the first being its staff, which she said is well-trained and get to know the students well.

“It’s like a little family here within our center,” she said. “So just because they can’t be at home with their parents, they get to come to the second-best thing, which is their favorite teachers and the fun environment that they get to come to.”

Ross said throughout the years, she’s gotten close to the staff members as well, even if they don’t work at the center anymore.

“In fact, two of them work for other daycare centers, and we still work together and collaborate together and get along so well,” she said. “And I just think that that says a lot for our environment, not only our work environment, but our students’ environment then in turn.”

The second component of the center is the healthy meals that it serves. Instead of processed foods or high-fructose corn syrup, Ross said the center serves homemade meals with fresh ingredients, whole-grain bread and lean meat.

“They have fresh avocados, they have mangos, pineapple, watermelon, all of those kinds of things that maybe they wouldn’t normally get to have in a daycare environment,” she said. “A lot of daycares go to something quick and easy, but we really focus on taking the extra time and the extra expense of serving those healthy foods from a young age.”

Especially at a young age, healthy eating habits are especially important, Ross said.

“The earlier we introduce that, it’s just going to come more naturally to them,” she said. “They’re going to develop the taste for them, and it’s not going to be something that they have to choose.”

The last component of the daycare is its teaching curriculum, created by Teaching Strategies. Ross said the deeper-level thinking, hands-on program is used nationwide in high-quality centers.

“You’re not going to see a lot of sitting down and doing worksheets,” she said. “Instead, you’re going to be seeing the kids working together in groups or even individually doing critical thinking, problem-solving.”

After the students at Fremont Children’s Academy learn a lesson, Ross said they go outside and play with natural materials and other building items not normally found on playgrounds.

“The kids then get to take their curriculum that they just learned in the classroom and apply it into their play, which is then learning,” she said. “So there’s a lot of hands-on learning here.”

The center also allows its students to take part in food crafts, which they get to make themselves, such as teddy-bear toast or a fruit caterpillar kebab.

“Other times it’s like blueberry muffins or zucchini bread where we all take turns putting in an ingredient and then going around the table and stirring it and checking it out, and then, of course, they get to eat it,” Ross said. “So it’s a very hands-on curriculum, and I think parents love that, and I know our students love it.”

Ross said the center also encourages family involvement, including inviting parents to come in and be a guest reader or help with a scavenger hunt.

“Or maybe they just come in and play with our students and bring in a different dynamic,” she said. “But we really encourage the parents to be involved and have a lot of family engagement.”

With the center’s 15th anniversary, Ross said its first students, including her own children, are now teenagers.

“Some of them had even come here to apply for jobs,” she said. “And having them as a student when they were very, very young and then now getting to see them as young adults is absolutely rewarding. That has got to be one of my favorite things.”

While she’s seen many daycare centers in Fremont come and go over the last 15 years, Ross said Fremont Children’s Academy has been able to provide a fun yet professional environment for children.

“Sometimes I think about what other job I would do instead, and I can’t think of anything,” she said. “I love my job, and I love getting to do the work that I do, so we’re very, very excited to be here for 15 years.”