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View ProfilesPublished September 13, 2023 at 10:00 a.m. | Updated September 13, 2023 at 10:12 a.m.
On a sunny Sunday afternoon in August, parents chatted outside Northfield's Gray Building as their children played in a sandpit and slid down a slide built into the sloping lawn. An informal potluck gave families who'd enrolled their children in the new Rainbow Gardens early learning program the chance to see the space and meet teachers and classmates before it opened on September 5.
The yeasty aroma of rolls freshly baked by teacher Hannah Kraskow wafted inside the building. Light streamed through the large windows in two classrooms, illuminating the kid-size furniture, play kitchens, dress-up areas and simple wooden toys. Rainbow Gardens' Waldorf-inspired philosophy emphasizes imaginative play, the arts and time spent in nature.
Blake Pierson, a former Silicon Valley entrepreneur, and his wife, Andrea Lively, who together founded the nonprofit childcare center, mingled with families. For months, the couple had been laser-focused on preparing to launch the school, which will serve 19 children ages 2 to 5.
The work had been nonstop: putting in kitchens for preparing snacks and lunches, ordering supplies, building outdoor play equipment, enlisting contractors to install additional fire alarms. They'd hired two teachers and support staff. And they'd processed student applications and financial aid requests to fulfill their promise that no family pays more than 10 percent of their income on tuition.
Now, the couple was T-minus nine days from opening.
During a lull in the action, Pierson conceded that he'd never been as nervous about any other professional endeavor. He knew families and teachers were counting on him, and he didn't want to let anyone down.
"It's a little surreal," he said. "I haven't had time to feel excitement."
Pierson and Lively, recent Vermont transplants raising two young daughters in Northfield, have forged their own path to start Rainbow Gardens. But advocates, who worked to pass a historic childcare bill this year that puts more than $100 million dollars annually into the childcare sector, are hopeful that more people will follow in their footsteps.
While Pierson is new to the world of early childhood education, he has plenty of experience building a business from the ground up. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, Pierson cofounded Silicon Valley apartment-hunting app Lovely, which sold in 2014 for $13 million. Lively, who has a graduate degree from the London School of Economics and Political Science, is a former consultant and classically trained violinist.
The couple lived abroad, in Spain and then Norway, before settling in Vermont in 2022. They decided to put down roots in Northfield, despite having no prior connection to the area, because they thought the socioeconomically diverse town of around 6,000 people would be a wonderful place to raise kids.
Pierson eagerly jumped into civic life. He began attending community meetings and joined the town's planning commission and housing task force.
The couple soon realized it was difficult to find affordable, high-quality childcare in Northfield, the home of Norwich University and sock company Darn Tough.
In a series of community meetings in the spring sponsored by the Vermont Council on Rural Development, Northfield residents identified childcare as a pressing issue, town manager Jeff Schulz said. Besides Rainbow Gardens, the town has just two licensed childcare centers. Another, Little Crickets, recently closed.
Pierson and Lively, who became interested in Waldorf education after the birth of their first daughter, decided they wanted to help address the problem. Pierson had recently joined the board of directors of the Gray Building Coalition, a nonprofit that acquired the stately structure in 2002. He knew that the historic building, once a primary school that educated hundreds of Northfield's children, would be the ideal location.
"We just ended up diving in the deep end," Pierson said, "and have been trying to stay above water as best we can over the last few months."
He discovered what veteran providers have known for decades: The business model for childcare is broken. Programs for young children require low teacher-to-child ratios, meaning parents often pay exorbitant tuition. Early childhood educators earn low wages, making it difficult for childcare programs to recruit and retain staff. In Vermont, there's been a perennial shortage of childcare slots for families, especially in rural areas.
From January through July of this year, 41 childcare centers and home-based programs in Vermont closed; another 28 opened, according to data from the state. The numbers reflect the reality that running a childcare center means taking on responsibility for young children despite the lack of financial reward.
But Pierson has found support from multiple sources.
The state has been responsive and helpful in answering questions about the licensing process, he said. After a site visit from a Department for Children and Families employee in mid-August, Rainbow Gardens received its license to operate on August 29. Pierson has also gotten advice and support from the Vermont office of First Children's Finance, a national nonprofit that contracted with the state at the end of 2022 to provide free technical assistance to early childhood programs on topics such as budgeting, staffing and board governance.
A $48,000 grant from early childhood advocacy group Let's Grow Kids went toward renovations of two classrooms and the center's outdoor space. Family and friends donated another $50,000.
The community has rallied to support the school. Parents of enrolled students pitched in over the summer to build outdoor play kitchens, paint the swing set and do landscaping. Local businesses donated materials and labor. Schulz, the town manager, took Pierson into the town vault to locate a critical paper copy of the building's wastewater permit.
But there have also been challenges: Some grant requests were rejected. It will take months for the center to become eligible for federal school-lunch dollars. An overhaul of the building's fire and carbon monoxide detection systems cost more than $20,000, though Pierson hopes to get partial reimbursement through a grant.
Further, Rainbow Gardens didn't have its license over the summer, so it wasn't eligible for the state's universal pre-K program for 3- to 5-year-olds, which provides subsidized tuition for families. The center is offering financial aid to offset the cost until the funds are available next year.
The good news for those who are opening early childhood programs in Vermont is that more help is on the way, thanks to Act 76, a sweeping childcare bill enacted earlier this year. The law calls for the state to invest an additional $125 million into the childcare system annually, paid for by a 0.44 percent payroll tax shared between employers and employees. The money will allow the state to increase its reimbursement rate to home and center-based programs by 35 percent starting in January. It will also expand eligibility for financial childcare assistance for families starting in April 2024. By next October, families earning up to 575 percent of the federal poverty level — or $172,500 for a family of four — will be eligible for some assistance.
In order to help childcare programs prepare for the changes, the state will begin sending out monthly "readiness" payments beginning in late September. The payments — starting at between $60 and $75 per child, plus bonuses if a childcare program meets certain criteria — can be used for a range of initiatives, including teacher raises, renovations and program materials.
Aly Richards, CEO of Let's Grow Kids, thinks that the new funding will begin to bolster the sector and that more people will start early childhood programs.
"The whole point of this bill is to make it easier to start running a childcare," Richards said. "This is a sustainable, systemic improvement to the childcare sector that will last forever."
Northfield resident Cara Gauthier, whose 2- and 4-year-old children started at Rainbow Gardens last week, is thankful that Pierson and Lively decided to take the risk of starting a childcare program before the bill's provisions went into effect. She'd spent a year looking for childcare, and her kids attended two separate programs, which proved logistically difficult. Before that, she tried using a part-time nanny, which she found to be too expensive.
Gauthier said she feels lucky to have a new childcare program in her community that follows the Waldorf philosophy.
In spite of all the logistical hurdles he's encountered to get Rainbow Gardens up and running, Pierson said, he hasn't lost sight of why he wanted to start a childcare program in the first place. Kids are "our hope for the future," he said.
In his view, that's an investment worth making.
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