Oak Park River Forest Day Nursery

The Day Nursery seeks to serve and be recognized as a model of Best Practice in the field of Early Childhood Education by ensuring all children and families have access to high quality early care and education through participation in our world class, exceptional programs.

A strategic plan was developed and passed by the board in the spring of 2016 focusing on five main areas: Facilities, Programs and Services, Human Resources and Organizational Climate, Marketing and Public Relations, and Funding and Financial Management.

Some of the strategies outlined in these areas include exploring additional site locations in the community to fill the need for infant/toddler care, offering parent education to the greater community, adding a behavioral health services component for children attending The Day Nursery, and creating a Parent Resource Center onsite. In order to maintain the highest quality staff, The Day Nursery will reassess current personnel policies, develop an employee recognition program, and increase professional development opportunities. All of these strategies require marketing and fund development and various goals have been established in these areas as well

The Day Nursery has a strong and very engaged Board, volunteers, donors, and staff who all contribute to our progress.

Assessments of children prove that The Day Nursery consistently meets its goal of instilling a joy of learning and preparing children for kindergarten. Annually, a minimum of 90% of Day Nursery pre-kindergarteners transfer to kindergarten with the skills necessary for school success, based on Teaching Strategy Gold assessments. In FY22, 100% of students met or exceeded expectations in five of six domains by the end the 2021-2022 year. In Math, 90% of the children met or exceeded expectations.

Parents also express satisfaction, and even gratitude, to The Day Nursery for its analytical and nurturing approach to children. The analytical piece promotes nurturing though assessment that provide insight into a child's development. One example is a child who had been asked by several other centers to leave due to disruptive behavior. Through assessments, The Day Nursery discovered he had difficulties with language and therefore became disruptive due to frustration in not being able to adequately express himself. The child received the interventions he required and went on to kindergarten ready and excited.

The mother said the following about her experience at The Day Nursery, “When I was feeling that the world had turned its back on us and my son was gonna be written off as just another bad kid, you all gave me hope. But more than hope, you gave us a home. Every day, All the teachers smiled and gave him a hug in the morning when we got there and didn't make us feel bad for being there. At night, people asked me how my day was instead of running up to tell me all the things my son had done wrong. Most of the time I heard about the 'good choices' he made or at least tried to make. He mattered. I mattered. Everybody at The Day Nursery was there for us, no matter what. Thanks to you guys, we both got what we needed to be better at being us."

In terms of goals in the strategic plan, several have already been met and others are in progress. Leadership is looking at additional sites, Human Resource policies are being updated, a Planned Giving Program has been developed along with a Case for Support, and funding is being sought to support Behavioral Services.