A Parent’s Perspective
In the Spring of 2023, it was decided that Woodbridge School would close the infant Sprouts classroom. Woodbridge’s focus would be on its thriving programs for toddlers to Pre-K children. These programs would continue to grow while embracing its Reggio inspired curriculum. Afterall, it is during these developmental years that play is so formative to a child’s development, so in following best practices, the difficult decision was to focus on where to best serve their target audience, children 18 months to 5 years old. Attracting top quality teachers for infants had also become increasingly challenging and they did not want to compromise their high-quality standards.
When that decision was made, tough conversations were required with parents of children in the infant room, explaining the rationale and the personal and professional angst of informing these parents that they would need to find another alternative until their children were 18 months old. Woodbridge School Director, Sarah Ganong, and Chris Hunt, Executive Director of Partners in Child Development struggled with the impact to their families; knowing this was especially disruptive to each family’s daily lives. They went back and forth for several months, working through every scenario to avoid disrupting families’ lives. It came down to making the difficult decision while remaining committed to focusing and growing a high-quality child development program.
A Woodbridge Parent’s Story
Fast forward to one of the impacted moms, Dinny, speaking to the board of directors about her personal experience with Woodbridge School and Partners in Child Development. She described her journey from having to find a new childcare center for her infant son and the difficult decisions of taking her toddler out of Woodbridge School because of the convenience of one drop-off and pickup for her two sons.
While away from Woodbridge School, she described missing the frequency of outdoor play for her active toddler and his sharing that they did not play outside because of the cold or rain. She especially missed the daily communications and teacher-family partnership from Woodbridge School that she had appreciated so much. After lamenting over the inadequacies of their interim solution, she and her husband agreed that their oldest needed to be back at Woodbridge School, knowing it would add yet another demand on them as they added an additional drop-off and pick up each workday to the already challenging job of juggling their work and home life. The extra drop-off was worth it to them as parents and to their son Walker’s developmental experience. Walker needed to be back at Woodbridge, playing with paint and mud and doing yoga to learn mindfulness at a young age! No more plastic toys and being cooped-up inside.
As soon as their second son Barrett (‘Bear”) was age eligible, he too was back at Woodbridge School ready to wear his big brother’s rain suit and explore and enjoy the great outdoors!
From this Dinny’s perspective, Woodbridge School offers a unique child development experience that she could not find anywhere else. The facility, the philosophy, the warm lighting and soft music, the art room, the fabulous outdoor play area, and the focus on each individual child to express themselves and explore and develop through play – especially outdoor play. The daily notes and communication about each boy’s day with photos and videos to connect them to their sons’ daily experiences was back in their routine and they look forward to it every day.
While it was difficult to have to leave, Dinny is so grateful to be back with two happy boys thriving and developing at Woodbridge School.
