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The Learning Tree for Children: New center provides curiculum-based services

September 15, 2008|STEPHANIE SCHELL

LANCASTER - Denise Alexander said her new learning center is the result of how she would like her own children to be cared for if she weren't around.

The Learning Tree for Children is a 7,000-square-foot facility at 258 Lexington St. Alexander said the center has a few added benefits that not many child-care facilities in the area offer.

"We are a learning center, we are not a day care," she said.

The center is curriculum based with seven classrooms that divide children up into appropriate age groups. It has a monthly theme that helps keep consistency and structure for the kids, which carries over into the curriculum. The facility also has letters, a shape and a color of the month. This month's theme is camping. Next month's will be farm animals.

"(The kids) know what to expect and the parents know what to expect," Alexander said.

She views her facility as a form of pre-school. She already has a few students who are bussed from their regular pre-school classes in the morning to her facility in the afternoons. She would love to see more pre-school students enroll in her facility as to provide a stable base rather than being relocated in the middle of the day.

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"A lot of parents do it because they don't have a choice," Alexander noted.

Plus, she said kids don't get the same one-on-one treatment in a public setting as they do in a private one.

Details of the facility

The facility is licensed to hold 87 kids from ages 6 weeks to 12 years old. Alexander's staff of six, plus the other three owners, all have an array of experience regarding children. Alexander worked for two years with a residential home for girls in Berea and four years of case management with Kentucky Safe Foster Care in Richmond. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree in child and family services from Berea College.

And this is what she always wanted to do, she said, and somehow it all came together for her at the perfect time.

"God led me to do it, that's the only explanation I have," she said. "Everything just fell into place."

She's working to get all her staff Child Development Association credentials so the facility can get recognition as a Star Program facility. She also takes great pride in safety at the center.

"I've done everything I know to do to protect these children," Alexander said.

Measures range from having the entire staff CPR certified to push-button intercoms outside the locked doors of the building. Security cameras and audio systems are set up in each room that Alexander said are completely open for parents to view. Even parents who don't have children enrolled are invited to tour the facility and view security cameras so they can see first-hand how instructors interact with the kids.

The Learning Tree for Children is open from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday. For more information or for rates, call (859) 792-1917.

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