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Proceeding With Care

TRIBUNE PHOTO CANDACE C. MUNDY

At the Playtime Academy, 4701 Ehrlich Road, youths (lf to rt) Akeima Southern, 5, Madyson Cardenas, 4, and Beila Garrett, 4, enjoy playtime together.

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By ELIZABETH LEE BROWN

The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 9, 2008

CARROLLWOOD - When Playtime Learning Academy bought a rundown day care center in 2003, two former teachers set out to transform it.

They painted the walls, bought new toys, fired teachers and designed their own lesson plans.

The changes clicked. Within three months, enrollment climbed from 40 children to capacity at 99.

Five years later, the day care center and preschool is reinventing itself again.

Owners plan to open a $1.3 million, two-story building that expands the number of offerings for the state's voluntary pre-kindergarten class and moves children off the waiting list.

Construction began in May on the nearly 6,000-square-foot building on the northern edge of Ehrlich Road, a few feet from the school's main building, which is a converted house.

The new building's metal frame soon will be covered with stucco walls. The mobile trailer behind it, which houses the classrooms for 3- and 4-year-olds, will be removed.

The project should be completed in mid-August. Owners hope to start the school year and welcome students on Sept. 8.

With the expanded space, Playtime Learning Academy will increase its capacity from 99 to 170 students. The school offers care from infants to pre-kindergarten classes. It also transports before- and after-schoolers to nearby Citrus Park, Essrig, Claywell and Northwest elementary schools.

The two-story structure will feature a full-sized commercial kitchen, a teacher's resource room, an office, security cameras, and classrooms for seven preschool classes that will be networked for Internet access.

In the main building, the office will turn into another infant room. The central common space will be a library. A 25-space parking lot will replace the existing three spots next to the trailer.

Director Emily Brushwood, a co-owner with Julie Banks, said the idea for the school started after she was chatting with her neighbor, another former teacher, about the lack of quality day care.

"We had to put our children in child care, and we were very upset at what we were finding," she said.

The co-owners hold master's degrees in education and had taught in elementary classrooms in Hillsborough County, as well as Texas, Alabama and New York.

"We felt we could do a better job," Brushwood said. "We knew how to educate, and we kind of learned the business."

Their first venture was opening Playtime at Westshore in 2002. It was a drop-in babysitter service at WestShore Plaza. Catering to busy parents who wanted to see a movie or shop for a bathing suit without toting toddlers was a good idea, they believed.

But that business model lasted almost a year before the rent got too expensive. The storefront is now a shoe store.

Their next step was searching for a day care center to buy.

"We didn't want to give up and just go back to teaching and giving up a dream of ours," Brushwood said.

A real estate agent found the former Wright Child Center on Ehrlich Road for sale. It was a bit run down, but the converted house and portable classroom on 1 acre at the entrance of Country Place subdivision had potential.

The pair replaced the flooring, repainted the walls with murals, brought in new furniture and replaced unqualified teachers with new ones. And they wrote their own curriculum.

Brushwood said the classrooms are divided into centers that focus on specific subjects, such as dress-up play, science and discovery, writing, arts and crafts, math, computers and kitchen and home living.

Each week, the curriculum revolves around a certain theme. The lessons are developmentally appropriate and based on the state standards established for kindergarten.

Brushwood said the school has achieved the Gold Seal accreditation for child care facilities in Florida, partly based on the curriculum.

"The children's artwork is always up. Children feel like this is their classroom," she said.

PLAYTIME LEARNING ACADEMY

ADDRESS: 4701 Ehrlich Road

PHONE: (813) 969-2888

WEB SITE: www.playtime learningacademy.com

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