Winter Park Day Nursery, Inc.

Winter Park Day Nursery believes every child deserves equal access and opportunity for educational readiness so they do not fall behind before starting elementary school. Income disparities often prevent low income working parents’ access to affordable, quality education-based preschool. There is compelling evidence that the lives of children ages 6 weeks to 5-years-old are positively impacted when immersed in a quality early learning environment influencing both their future educational and life success. The Winter Park Day Nursery is dedicated to providing a loving and nurturing early learning environment that is affordable to low income working families who are equally committed to improving their child’s future life through educational readiness. WPDN’s expected impact is that children who graduate from the school will be better prepared for success in elementary school and beyond. These children will be able to better understand and manage their own emotions, problem solve on their own and with their peers, be aware of their own actions and the effect of these on others, not to mention having a working knowledge of academic principles necessary for success in kindergarten and beyond. As parents today face increasing difficulties finding affordable childcare, schools such as WPDN’s that provide sizable tuition scholarship assistance for high-quality care are experiencing large waiting lists. This is a challenging time for the day nursery as the leadership determines how the organizations can best grow to meet the needs of our community’s and impact the educational success of more children. (Several options for renovation or expansion of facilities and services are being considered as we stretch the limits of an aging building and are in the process of laying the groundwork for expansion through a capital campaign).

In order to serve more children and take the day nursery to the ‘next level’ of educational excellence, and accomplish long-term goals, Winter Park Day Nursery plans to build organizational capacity in some key areas, including facilities, staffing and board development. One of the near-term strategies the board and key staff has identified and is putting in place and assigning responsibilities for strengthening donor relations and individual gift giving to pave the way for the launch of a capital campaign. This strategy will require both a staff and board involvement to build a development program. The board development will focus on relationship building, in order to expand fund-raising capacities. Likewise, capacity-building will focus on staff development and expansion -- since staff educational and credential levels are the most common indicator of a quality preschool education. Contributing factors to workforce development include preparation programs, mentoring, teacher compensation and providing vital staff support services. Strategies in this focus area include addressing staff turnover and salary (increasing staff salary and determining appropriate amount increase (based on credentials) and over what period of time, workforce/workdays scheduling/hours, and benefits package. WPDN is also exploring staff education (what credentials are required for specific positions and required services, recruitment strategies (such as through internships) and staff appreciation and development (incentives, external and internal trainings and team building activities). Increasing the level of staff credentials to further enhance program quality, and staff coaching and support to improve efficiency, will not only positively impact outcomes but will also result in a smoother transition as Winter Park Day Nursery expands our physical facilities to meet the preschool needs of more of our community’s at-risk children. It is imperative WPDN maintains a strong, skilled and credentialed staff to impact long-term, successful outcomes. Board development will also be a major area of focus in the near-term, including recruitment (identifying what experience is needed on the board, how to best empower/encourage board members to bring qualified board candidates for consideration, and defining minimum standards and the process for new member selection). WPDN’s approach to board development will also focus on strengthening orientation and board training in such areas as duties and responsibilities, setting individual board member participation/scorecard goals (including in the critical areas of duties and responsibilities, the onboarding process, board organization (committees/structure/processes) and continuing education – especially in fundraising, donor relations.) WPDN plans on revisiting its Board Succession Plan (reviewing by-laws for terms and assigning responsibility for managing and tracking of terms and related matter) to the Governance Committee, with a Nominating Committee assigned to work on a long-term plan for board appointments). Working together, the strategies identified here will provide a blueprint for its continued development and positioning as a community leader in promoting educational excellence.

The Winter Park Day Nursery has built a high-quality, well-respected preschool education program reputation viewed as a demonstration site for best practices in early learning. This effort includes the addition of a strong structure of services to support preschoolers’ emotional and social/behavioral development, an alumni/extended support services which track our alumni to analyze the factors contributing to their success and has strengthened its curriculum in the areas of early literacy, mathematics and STEM learning. WPDN has worked hard to build its level of parent engagement in the center and over the past several years has seen steady increases in participation. Winter Park Day Nursery’s vision is to use our knowledge in many aspects of operation to raise the level of preschool education for all of our community’s children. The organization’s core assets include both internal and external resources. There is a board of directors with many dedicated individuals with expertise in a variety of areas, including strategic thinking. The staff is led by an executive director with a master’s degree in mental health counseling along with a certificate in Marriage & Family Therapy. She holds an Advanced Level Florida Childcare and Education Program Director credential. Under her leadership as executive director since 2011, Winter Park Day Nursery has strengthened its enrollment, re-branded and built its profile within the community. The school has also been a steady voice advocating for the importance of early childhood education in the community and has worked to bring about systems-level change and impact the community-wide quality of early childhood education. Winter Park Day Nursery emphasizes training and supports teachers’ professional development, with 50% of the staff holding an associates or bachelor’s degree and 25% working toward obtaining a degree or a higher degree than has already been obtained. Since Winter Park Day Nursery values the accountability that accreditation requirements bring to an institution, the center has been accredited since 2000. First by NAEYC (National Association for the Education of Young Children) and for the last 10 years by NAC (the National Accreditation Commission). Less than 25% of child care centers nationwide are accredited. The process of accreditation offers WPDN a comprehensive, on-going quality improvement measurement tool to demonstrate and document quality performance utilizing research-based criteria and evidence-based practices. Through collaboration, partnership-building and systems-level networking, WPDN brings resources into its program to broaden its community impact. Winter Park Day Nursery’s community collaborations and partnerships are numerous and bring many external resources to the center. As indicated, local area institutions of higher learning such as Seminole State College and Orange Technical College use WPDN as a demonstration site for ‘best practices’ in early childhood learning and a placement site for interns. Additionally, WPDN enjoys a strong working partnership with the Rollins College Child Development Center. As a laboratory for the Rollins Department of Psychology, the center is a leader in identifying and implementing developmentally appropriate practice for all children, scaffolded and individualized learning opportunities and research-based assessment/screening tools. Winter Park Day Nursery partners with the Orlando Day Nursery and Welbourne Avenue Nursery (located in Winter Park) two other schools providing discounted tuition on a sliding scale, by collaborating on staff training and joint grants. These three schools work with the understanding they are not in competition with each other but are working toward the same purpose and goals – even though the services of each vary in some instances – to fill a community need.

Current Accomplishments: With the help of grant funding from the Central Florida Foundation, the WPDN’s board and staff worked with a consultant from the Edyth Bush Institute for Philanthropy & Non-Profit Leadership at Rollins College to explore the school’s options for growth, creating a business plan which will become part of a larger strategic plan outlining the key growth initiatives for 2017-2020. This strategic plan sets forth near-term objectives to propel WPDN toward reaching the ultimate intended goals. The organization is well underway in building the development program as outlined in the strategic plan 2017 - 2020. Thanks to a generous grant from the Dr. P. Phillips foundation, paving the way for WPDN to implement a more aggressive and strategic fundraising and development effort that will ultimately set our organization up for future success. 
The launching of alumni/extended support services, and tracking of alumni academic progress through grade three, a three-year project (“Successful Transitions” - 2014-2016) was accomplished with funding from the Heart of Florida United Way through its “Investing in Results” initiative. This initiative, by enabling WPDN to track students' success as they transitioned into elementary school provided outcome data that has contributed to the knowledge of what is most effective in fostering early childhood learning on both a short-term and long-term basis.