278: How Can Onsite Childcare Transform Your Workplace? With Jeanette and Christy

You’re in for a treat with this episode of Childcare Conversations! Kate and Carrie sit down with Jeannette Ward from Texas Mutual Insurance and Christy Black from Primrose Central Texas to chat about their creative partnership bringing onsite childcare to Texas Mutual’s Austin HQ. 

They share the ups and downs of launching the center, from employee retention to navigating regulations and even expanding access for underprivileged families. If you’re curious about how businesses and childcare providers can team up to support working parents (and the whole community!), this episode is full of smart ideas and heartfelt stories. 

Check out Christy's previous podcast episode!

Check out our Summer Sponsor: Childcare Business Growth

Thanks for Listening 🎧

• Want to learn more? Check out our book; "From Overwhelmed to I Got This: Guaranteed Success Route to Directing Your Childcare Center" 📖
• Join our Facebook Group for Childcare professionals!
• Join our Podcast Newsletter!
• Want to be a guest on our podcast? Go to our website to learn more.
• Are you looking for director training in Texas? Check out our Texas Director Website for our training and additional resources!

Transcript

Marie 00:00:03  Welcome to Child Care Conversations, the podcast where early childhood leaders like you get real world strategies, honest talk and a whole lot of support. Whether you're running one center or many. We're here to help you lead with confidence and clarity. This episode is brought to you by our summer partner Child Care Business Growth, your go to solution for filling spots, increasing revenue, and scaling your child care business without the burnout. We're proud to partner with a team that's as committed to your success as we are. Learn more at Childcare Business growth.com. Now let's get into today's conversation. One we think you're really going to love.

Kate 00:00:50  Well, welcome to today's episode of Child Care Conversations with Kate and Kerry. And we are excited to have a Jeannette Ward with Texas Mutual and Kristy Black with Primrose. Central Texas. Just see schools. Schools. There we go. Primrose. Schools. And we're going to talk about their unique business partnership, how it came to be. And if we get a little.

Carrie 00:01:16  Overly familiar with Christie, I will go ahead and do the disclaimer.

Carrie 00:01:20  We've known her for more than a decade and have trained, I don't know, 15, 20 directors and admin staff for her. That might not be enough because we train her office managers, her directors, all those people.

Kate 00:01:36  All the real important ones, all the people. So let's start with just a real simple conversation. Whose idea was it and why?

Jeannette 00:01:44  Well, I'll start so Texas Mutual. We've been around for 30 years, and we at least we owned a building. Sorry. We owned a building about a mile from here to 9035, and it was an older building. It was starting to kind of cause some issues. And so we decided we wanted to build a brand new building. This the Mueller or Mueller development had just kind of started to take off. And so we decided, hey, it's only a mile that way. It won't interrupt any of our employees commutes. So it gave us a chance kind of to start fresh. And and so one of the things that had been happening was we had lost a couple of our key employees because there's a there's not a lot of insurance companies in Austin, but there was one that had an onsite childcare center.

Jeannette 00:02:29  And adjusters are precious gold to an insurance company in a town where there's not a lot of them. So, so, you know, from a competitive perspective, we're like, we should have it. And we we didn't offer it as some like an onsite childcare center that we're running. We wanted to lease it to a child care provider at less than market rates to make it enticing to bring in child care.

Kate 00:02:54  So. Okay, so let's start. Wait, wait. Okay. So use least it to them going in. You knew it was going to be less than market, right? Yes. Everybody hear that?

Jeannette 00:03:05  To entice. Yes. Good quality child care center to come be here.

Carrie 00:03:09  I think that that's something that even programs that, like churches or other faith based organizations can think about. If they're like, I don't want to run my own child care center. But if they lease the space during the week to an operating childcare program at less than market rates because they're not using it 24 over seven, they're using it for 10 to 12 hours a day, five days a week.

Carrie 00:03:34  So they're, you know, 60 hours a week. Yep. Having that at less than market rate is a good way to service your community, whether it's your employees or your church community, your neighborhood community in a way that's sustainable for both parties.

Kate 00:03:51  Right now.

Carrie 00:03:51  Because you weren't getting any rent before.

Jeannette 00:03:54  Yeah, I love that. Yeah.

Kate 00:03:55  So question is because. Because I don't know the answer. On a company your size. Is that also something that you can then take as a tax break the fact that you don't have like it's worth this, but we only charge this or does that not work in.

Jeannette 00:04:10  No, no.

Kate 00:04:11  Not at all.

Carrie 00:04:13  Only if so, it would work if you were renting to a non-profit. Childcare?

Kate 00:04:18  Yeah. Right.

Carrie 00:04:19  Right. Then that could be a gift. In-kind.

Jeannette 00:04:21  Yeah. But not. Not in this case.

Kate 00:04:22  Okay. All right.

Jeannette 00:04:23  There are current day. There are some incentives for business owners now, but they weren't in a place at that time.

Kate 00:04:28  Okay. All right.

Christy 00:04:30  We might work towards that.

Kate 00:04:31  Yeah. Okay, good. All right, I like it. Yes.

Jeannette 00:04:34  Because we would pass it on.

Christy 00:04:35  That's right. Yeah. That's right. Absolutely.

Kate 00:04:37  All right. So you knew going into building this building that you wanted a child care center. How did you find Christy, or did Christy find you?

Jeannette 00:04:45  Or so. And at the time, I wasn't CEO. I was the chief operating officer. Sir. so this was a joint decision, sort of between the executive leadership team. the funny thing that it was our previous CEO, which Greg Pascoe, myself and maybe one other person on the EQ team were strongly in favour, but he he wore the biggest hat, so we won. It was interesting. Some of the, the grumblings we heard, you know, it's going to be loud or there's going to be traffic. And in all of that, we designed the building in a way that it's worked out really well. But, it was just odd that there were people against it.

Jeannette 00:05:21  Oh yeah.

Christy 00:05:22  That was interesting. But not everyone said the kids.

Jeannette 00:05:25  So I mean, so I wasn't directly involved, but we did an RFP. So we, we reached out, quality was I think at top of our list. And that's you answered the RFP. I don't know, what do you think.

Christy 00:05:38  We were looking.

Kate 00:05:38  For? Did you how did you find an RFP? Because, again, that's not something that generally makes high, right? Let's make doing an RFP.

Christy 00:05:46  That's where we are blessed with our, silent partner. He's in commercial real estate. Okay, so he has access to all of those things. And he actually knew Rich and Mike. Yeah. and so it was an easy call. Okay.

Kate 00:06:02  Yeah. All right.

Christy 00:06:03  Because I think they probably knew that he was dabbling in this world. And that's how it happened.

Kate 00:06:08  Yeah.

Christy 00:06:08  Okay. All right.

Kate 00:06:09  So there was an RFP. You filled out the RFP?

Christy 00:06:14  I mean essentially we we got it. Yeah we landed it.

Kate 00:06:18  What were your tips though for even if somebody was wanting to do this. Because I know that this is a little nontraditional, I don't know if it's traditional to have an RFP or if it's just, hey, we have space. We're going to lease it. So it's more like.

Jeannette 00:06:31  Well.

Kate 00:06:31  It's commercial space.

Jeannette 00:06:32  It was probably more like that. Okay. Yeah, yeah.

Christy 00:06:34  Yeah, I think it was probably more about who we knew. Yeah. Okay then. Yeah.

Kate 00:06:38  So you had a network. So what I'm hearing. Yeah. That was a network.

Christy 00:06:42  Very well connected network. Yeah.

Kate 00:06:43  Okay. So, so people who are listening to this episode might perhaps think I'm having enough fancy people. Have fancy people at work.

Christy 00:06:50  Become friends.

Kate 00:06:51  And letters might be a good thing. Okay.

Carrie 00:06:53  And maybe being part of the chamber.

Christy 00:06:55  Which is all that, I mean, and I had I mean, I've known her for years as well. I've known you all for years, but I've also known her for years because I've.

Christy 00:07:03  We've been to women in business together. I've seen her. I'm like, I'm a fan. Like, you've been on the stage, you know. So it's this has also been a very smooth relationship for us because we've known each other for a long time.

Kate 00:07:15  Well, part of the reason I'm asking those questions is that we still run into people like we attend. We've done 100 presentations this year already, and I would say probably over 50%. Every time we run into people who aren't part of their chamber, who are part of their community activities, and they don't even have, a professional advisory team. So they don't have a commercial realtor, they don't have a banker, they don't have a lawyer.

Christy 00:07:41  And they're all right there.

Kate 00:07:44  Yeah. And I'm just like.

Carrie 00:07:45  It's not that hard.

Kate 00:07:46  I want to say. Speaking of my mic, but you have your own mic on.

Christy 00:07:48  Yeah.

Kate 00:07:49  Please reiterate.

Christy 00:07:50  No, it's really not that hard. I mean, they in Lake Travis, which is where I live.

Christy 00:07:55  they jokingly refer to me as the mayor. No offense to the mayors out in Lake Travis, but because everywhere we go, they're like Kristy Black, Kristy Black, and it's it's it's not because I wanted it that way. It's because I just started showing up at all of the stuff through the chamber when I very first opened the BC school or transferred ownership of BC, and that's how I started to get my. And now we do it everywhere. We haven't done Austin Chamber so much. It feels really big. Yeah. But

Kate 00:08:25  But there's Regional chamber. So even in Austin. So there are some, some sub chambers.

Christy 00:08:30  Yeah. Like we we tried to do the Austin Young Chamber for a minute. I did not attend because there's an age gap, but, we sent representatives and all that and kind of grew a little bit of legs, but we're still trying to find our niche over here in the downtown area. Yeah, we're really involved with like, the Aldrich Street Group that's out here in Mueller.

Christy 00:08:52  So wherever we can we we sign up. That's the point.

Carrie 00:08:55  That's the point. Club. Join the.

Christy 00:08:56  Club. That's right. It's like going to college. Go put your name on all the cheese.

Kate 00:09:01  We are. So we had that conversation. We had that conversation.

Christy 00:09:04  I know.

Kate 00:09:04  I'm.

Christy 00:09:04  Ad nauseam with mine too. So.

Kate 00:09:07  All right.

Christy 00:09:08  So.

Kate 00:09:09  You knew some people? Yep. You had a space? Yep. I'm sure it wasn't as easy as.

Christy 00:09:14  I mean.

Kate 00:09:14  Is.

Christy 00:09:15  That so?

Kate 00:09:16  Talk about. So what was the lot of work what what went into. They had a space. They wanted a childcare center. You said, hey, we're here.

Christy 00:09:23  Right. Well, on our side. we have to make sure that Primrose approves of the space. Luckily for us, the timing worked out beautifully because the corporate office had started dipping their toe into something they call Primrose on premise, This, which is essentially what we are. Yeah. they've never categorized our school as that, but it is what we are basically saying that.

Christy 00:09:49  Well, yeah, basically, you know, saying that one business could have direct access to one school. and so it was a really easy sell, for that part. But but we still have to go through the whole process. So we have to we have to, you know, fill out all of the paperwork. And this was going to be our fourth location at the time. and so even though it's your fourth, you still have to start from the very beginning, like you're a nobody. And,

Carrie 00:10:23  They got to do the market research. They got to validate.

Christy 00:10:25  Yes, we have.

Carrie 00:10:26  To, because there could.

Christy 00:10:27  Be all the.

Carrie 00:10:27  Nobody living in this neighborhood.

Christy 00:10:29  That's right. Right. That's right. But the demographics, were there. We, I mean, I don't know how far you want to go, but we we started it, and then.

Kate 00:10:38  We'll.

Christy 00:10:38  Stop you. Okay? I mean, we opened, on September 11th of 2019, and we had eight classrooms at the time, and we opened with 40 infants.

Carrie 00:10:52  That's that's a lot of very short people.

Jeannette 00:10:55  Yeah, it.

Christy 00:10:56  It was crazy. So immediately we knew that our demand was going to be on the younger side of our building. obviously the Primos model is 0 to 5. And so you have infants all the way through pre-K, but we're like, okay, these 40 children, let's hold on to them for five years, and they will eventually be two pre-K classes here, which has happened, which is awesome. But when we first opened, I immediately started thinking, we need a bigger boat because.

Kate 00:11:31  I don't have I don't you probably didn't start necessarily with four infant rooms because. No that's why.

Christy 00:11:38  But we did, you know, I. I mean, what I kept telling our enrollment coordinators and our team at the time, I was just like, just take them. If that's who's knocking, take them. We will convert rooms and we will figure it out. And so we opened on day one with 80 children and half of them were infants.

Christy 00:11:55  Okay.

Jeannette 00:11:55  So that's.

Christy 00:11:56  Why.

Jeannette 00:11:56  It was so quiet for so.

Kate 00:11:57  Long or a different type of quiet.

Christy 00:12:00  Yeah, yeah.

Kate 00:12:01  So you obviously did pre marketing. You knew your community. Your community knew you were coming. You did pre enrollments because there's a lot of programs that we talked to that we tell them to do this too that they don't. Right. Like they're going no I got to wait till I have my certificate of occupancy. And I'm like no, that's too late. Like people like people start having babies. And so, you know, anywhere from six weeks to six months, they're after they're going to be looking for childcare. And if they know you're coming, that's that's exactly what you want.

Christy 00:12:32  No 100% like our you know, what we're kind of taught like from for most corporate is building a school. Opening a school is just like having a baby takes about nine, ten months. And so that's how we treat it. So from the second that construction starts, we hit the pavement and we start digital marketing, grassroots, all of that.

Christy 00:12:55  And so like by the time we were holding parent orientations, they graciously let us use space downstairs. And, I mean, the strollers were lined up. I was like, look at all strollers, you know? So, definitely knew, early on that we were going to be a young, a young building and a young parent base.

Carrie 00:13:15  I mean, and now you're at 20 rooms and ten of them are infant and young toddler. I know if I kept.

Christy 00:13:22  A toddler and a toddler. Yes, yes, yes, infant as well.

Carrie 00:13:28  Yes, I found it. I wanted.

Christy 00:13:30  To know. You're right, you're right, you're right.

Carrie 00:13:32  Yes. I was like, half of the building is under 18 months still.

Jeannette 00:13:37  And you think about this neighborhood. I mean, it's it's growing. They're putting in more apartments. I think the housing, the houses have kind of slowed down, but they're just.

Christy 00:13:45  But I heard a rumor about an elementary school.

Jeannette 00:13:47  Yeah.

Christy 00:13:48  I mean.

Jeannette 00:13:48  That's supposed.

Christy 00:13:49  To be. And so.

Jeannette 00:13:50  Yeah.

Christy 00:13:50  That will that will help even that back end of the building grow a little bit more too, because they'll know that they have a direct place to go. Yeah. Not that they don't already, but.

Carrie 00:13:59  So you had said something about opening or wanting to have the childcare here. And then once you did that, you started learning about other challenges that were in the early childhood area.

Jeannette 00:14:14  Yeah. So the first impetus for doing it was strictly like, hey, we've lost some people. Since we're taking this new approach, why don't we have a child care center? But we never I didn't think about it. Other than that, I attended, gosh, I think a leadership Austin event downtown and I learned that Austin was a childcare desert. And how. Just how many kids were on the waiting list for subsidized care and just the lack of available, affordable, quality childcare. And it was shocking to me because when I moved to Austin 35 years ago as a young single mother, I didn't have any problem finding childcare, and I was able to put myself through school and put my daughter in childcare and get a job here.

Jeannette 00:14:59  And I just started thinking, oh my God, if people don't have access to childcare, they can't. They can't do what I did. They can't have this incredible, you know, opportunity. so I came back that day and I went to Rich, our previous CEO, and I said, I wish we had known that we might have done something different. Not that we wouldn't want you, but. No, but it would have. We would have maybe had a different calculus, especially to help the kids that, you know, aren't able to even get get in anywhere and get help with tuition. Their parents get help with tuition. So that's just sort of. I just kind of become a became evangelized about it. I joined an organization called Early Matters, Greater Austin, which is a business coalition, an offshoot of United Way Success by Six with business owners who are trying to focus on trying to solve this issue. And we've been working steadily for 5 or 6 years on on trying to figure out how the business voice can help advocate for policy changes, maybe, you know, tax rate elections, what whatever the things.

Kate 00:15:58  Are.

Christy 00:15:59  Making it.

Kate 00:15:59  Better advantage of caring and being around child care in Austin for over 25 years is that we were part of some of the early, early conversations that go back 25 years and were initiated by Dell and the Dell Foundation, and Michael and his family when his kids were little. So.

Jeannette 00:16:16  Well, that's the problem. You forget, like when you think about who.

Kate 00:16:19  That's.

Christy 00:16:20  Actually.

Kate 00:16:20  Who's a huge problem.

Jeannette 00:16:21  Who most business owners are and where they are in their career. They're they've forgotten about how hard that was. Even if I even if it was hard for me, I would have forgotten about it by that time.

Carrie 00:16:29  And there's it's that whole it is a season in your life where it matters a huge amount, very transient. But if you're not as a CEO, as a corporate leader, if you're not working with your frontline staff who are still in that phase of your life, you're like, why do you keep missing work? Why do you keep what's going on? Why can't you get here? And they're like, well, I had to drop my kid at the babysitter.

Carrie 00:16:55  And then the babysitter was sick. And, you know, all of the things that happen when you're relying on informal childcare, because Kate and I both did in-home programs and we love them, but they can only take 6 to 12 kids. And if you as the caregiver get sick, or if your child gets sick, then the other kids can't come.

Kate 00:17:19  Or spouse, kids or anybody. I mean.

Carrie 00:17:21  If there's somebody sick, then you can't do the thing. And so there is a place for the home based programs. But if you're having a hard time keeping your workforce at work and you have a lot of people in their 20s and 30s, talk to your employees who are in their 20s and 30s about what kind of childcare arrangements they're having or childcare struggles. And that's one of the things that the world did learn during Covid was that brief period of time when the governors of different states shut down all business except for hospitals and and medical. They were like, if you're not a grocery store or a hospital, you're closing your doors.

Carrie 00:18:05  And that included childcare. And then the doctors and the nurses and the phlebotomist were like, we can't come to work, right? We have kids.

Christy 00:18:14  And then husband suits. Yeah.

Carrie 00:18:16  And then the governors were like, oh, okay. Childcare is an essential. It's like the grocery store and people are like, why is child care? Like the grocery store? Because the people who work at the grocery store have to have child care so that they can work at the grocery store.

Christy 00:18:32  It should be way higher up on the totem pole. Yeah. Yeah. Totally agree. I know, but.

Kate 00:18:38  With the business coalitions. And so if you're listening to this episode and your community doesn't have a business coalition or if, if you know it used to and you're like going, I think we used to have one. Go find somebody who has some of that history. Because that is another thing, is when when they are even nonprofit or city sponsored or city funded, again, depending on people's interests at a, at a official level, you know, depends on whether or not there's money for that.

Kate 00:19:06  And so, you know, we can sit here and go, oh, they did that like 25 years ago. Like, that's not really new, but it's a it's a new person. It's a new charge. Yeah. And chances are maybe one I actually think in your case there's probably three that were part of the Original group because I know who's in your group and I know who. We're in the group way back. So I think there's at least three that I know of for sure that we're in both groups, which is great, but not everybody gets that, because if you're in a, again, a major metro that has a lot of coming and going over 25 years, because, I mean, we're not talking about like this is a five year thing. This is something that Austin has struggled with for over 25 years. And I just love the fact that new people are coming in and taking a stab at it. Now, are you involved in that group or a group of solo from afar? From afar?

Christy 00:19:56  Okay.

Christy 00:19:57  They know that I will speak. I will, you know, they put together a really cool, lunch and learn basically with all of our any representatives that would join us, because.

Kate 00:20:09  In reality, you are a major employer. I mean, you are no longer a one shop.

Christy 00:20:14  No, I have 130 employees. Yeah. So you.

Kate 00:20:17  Are.

Christy 00:20:18  A That's small potatoes in Austin, but you have.

Carrie 00:20:21  130 employees, puts you in a whole different category as far as the IRS is concerned. So it puts you as a medium employee.

Christy 00:20:30  But we have enough to to fully be confident in what we're talking about.

Kate 00:20:34  Well, and you feel it on both ends because you not only you have 130 employees, but you are actually. How many kids do you have? How many families are in your programs?

Christy 00:20:41  Oh my gosh. over almost 600.

Kate 00:20:45  Okay, so you have 600 families, which translates to probably about 1000 working individuals in Austin. Plus your staff. So you have access every day to 1100 members of the Central Texas workforce.

Kate 00:20:59  Yes. That's amazing. That's impactful. I mean, and if you did the math and just said they all roughly made and I'm sure they don't all make $50,000, they probably make more, but that makes them math easy, right? You then have a whole lot of zeros that you actually impact as far as workforce development in Austin. And you are five locations, four locations, three locations. How many do we currently? How many do we have open?

Christy 00:21:22  We have three open. We're about to launch our fourth again.

Kate 00:21:25  So.

Christy 00:21:26  But but but it would be five. But.

Kate 00:21:28  But if somebody.

Christy 00:21:28  Was living in Lakeway.

Kate 00:21:29  What if somebody else mean. You have three locations and you have 5 million annually into the community because of your employees and your families. So no, you are not just a small business. I'm sorry. I'm going to get on my soapbox.

Christy 00:21:48  My heart, my heart beat a little faster.

Kate 00:21:50  Thank you so.

Christy 00:21:51  Much.

Kate 00:21:52  Go ahead. Kari. Well, one.

Christy 00:21:53  Thing I think that y'all really need to hear is the phone call.

Christy 00:21:58  Okay, that was the phone call, so I had been. Oh, gosh. I was stalking.

Jeannette 00:22:04  Them. The pandemic.

Christy 00:22:05  For.

Jeannette 00:22:05  The pandemic changed things. It did.

Christy 00:22:07  It did. I feel like it put everything into perspective. and so I saw Are the apartments expanding right across the street? You know, because our front door is on Garcia. And so we're I'm like, well, what's going there? Well, what's going in there? You know. And I was hitting the pavement all over Mueller like, I need I just need 5000 more square feet. We could we could have an infant. I had all these ideas. Infant center could be across the street, and the rest of the building could be here and all this stuff. Then, I don't remember. Maybe even it might have even been robbed. But he was like, well, have you asked TMI? And I hadn't thought to just knock on their door because, you know, landlords never want to, like, disturb the nest, but I did.

Christy 00:22:55  And so I reached out, asked for 5000ft². And you know what? Let me let me think about that. You you have a point. I said, I, I happen to notice that the floor that, you know, we can see there's just not as much Happening, you know, since the pandemic. And so it was rich called me back and the CEO at the time, and he said, I have a counteroffer. And I said, okay. And he said, if I match your square footage, so not just five, we'll double that and give it to you like rent free.

Jeannette 00:23:35  The extra five.

Christy 00:23:36  The extra five. Will you open your doors to underprivileged children? I started crying on the phone because I'm a crier, and I said, I don't even know if I can say yes, but yes, because game on. Like, even if I got a slap on the wrist from Primrose or whatever, I was like, this is crucial. This is important. And at that time in our world, it was like, we have to help these children.

Kate 00:24:03  Okay, so can I. Can I get a real quick frame of reference and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong? Yes. So as a business model, Primrose doesn't traditionally correct. Market to the quality. Subsidy based programs. I'm just trying to correct. So if anybody's listening and they're going well, why does. Why would that matter? I know, yeah. I just wanted to kind of add that little frame there that that's not your general business market.

Christy 00:24:29  Correct. And I will say and and the only reason being is because we pride ourselves in being premium. Therefore we have to have premium pricing. And typically those families cannot afford our care. And I hate saying that, but but I will also say that the pandemic change things to where more often than not, the schools, the Primrose schools have gone for tiers status. And if they can take those children or if they can help their teachers children, they are. So all, all things good have have happened.

Kate 00:25:04  And you are in a community that is very diverse as far as.

Christy 00:25:09  This is our most so.

Kate 00:25:11  Far. As far as socioeconomic, yes, location, all walks of a lot of your other locations would not traditionally even have that population. And it's.

Carrie 00:25:20  Yes, as in at least in as higher percentages.

Kate 00:25:24  Yes. Definitely not walking distance or, you know, right. Short drive. Right. Okay. All right. I just wanted to make sure that I was accurate so that anybody who was listening was going, why is that? So that that was probably part of the emotion.

Christy 00:25:36  Oh my gosh. It was it was really cool.

Jeannette 00:25:38  Yeah. So so the other end of the phone call, you know, you remember I came back from that one event, which I wish we would have done something that, that that was both in our head, like we were trying to figure out. Well, maybe we could at the time figure out our own, like, how do we work with other employers and, and provide subsidized tuition than we realize that we're running an insurance company.

Jeannette 00:25:57  We can't run a subsidized tuition coalition. That's not sustainable. So this is something we've been talking about. So when when she called, that's when we were like, okay, what can we do? What can we do? And and quite honestly, it just it seems so brilliant. Like, yes, we can do this. The reality.

Kate 00:26:17  Oh, yes.

Jeannette 00:26:17  The reality of making art too. But but it was also easy for us because again, post-pandemic, so many things changed. So we went from an in-office environment to flex hybrid. And so we have our employees, you know, they come in the office when it makes sense. They work from home. So we were able to consolidate. So we had our Austin regional office on the first floor. We moved them up here. We were able to consolidate. So that was easy. That was the easiest part.

Kate 00:26:42  I actually just assumed it was probably you had more than one restaurant, and only one restaurant survived because the one that's in the building is one that did survive most of its locations.

Christy 00:26:50  All the both of them? Yeah, yeah.

Jeannette 00:26:52  All of our tenants survive.

Kate 00:26:53  No, the one that's on the corner. I'm sure you have. You have other restaurants in your building, but I'm like that one survived.

Jeannette 00:26:59  Yeah, that that was actually our office space.

Kate 00:27:01  Oh, okay.

Jeannette 00:27:02  So it was very easy to to move it. And it was funny when I toured the space later. It's like, oh, this is our old break room.

Christy 00:27:08  Yeah, it's.

Jeannette 00:27:09  Like there's a few things to look the same. So yeah, that part was easy. We had to kind of do some construction to block off access points and a lot.

Christy 00:27:17  Of.

Jeannette 00:27:18  Security and technology, but that was the easy part. Doing the contract was interesting just because, you know, there are lawyers. Yeah. With that 5000 free square feet and the, you know, the the trade off is you have to do this. So we had to put in some, some restrictions on that. But we also had gotten a hint that it would be difficult that it's like there's some bureaucracy to it, there's going to take a while and then, you know, there's some issues with reliability.

Jeannette 00:27:46  So we just knew there's going to be a lot. So we gave plenty of space to make to make that happen.

Christy 00:27:51  And thank goodness. Yeah.

Jeannette 00:27:53  Because it's been hard.

Christy 00:27:54  I mean, we were, So we're officially a year away from when we were supposed to have, like, our first set of 20 children in the building. We just received our tours status last week.

Jeannette 00:28:08  Congratulations. Oh my God.

Christy 00:28:10  But y'all, we started working on it two years ago. Yeah. And so that was some. I mean, it's going to sound terrible, but that's what some veteran people.

Kate 00:28:21  Yeah. Well, not only.

Christy 00:28:22  That in the mix.

Kate 00:28:23  Like, even once you have that Texas, like, other states don't necessarily have the money to put the kids in. So just because you have your teachers status doesn't necessarily mean that, you know.

Carrie 00:28:33  But I.

Christy 00:28:34  Guess I'm on other.

Carrie 00:28:35  People listening from other places, other countries, other states. So TRS is the.

Christy 00:28:41  Rating system.

Carrie 00:28:42  For high quality care.

Carrie 00:28:44  That is a voluntary system in the state of Texas. And if you provide care to subsidies where the government pays for part of the tuition, you do need to go through the the Star program, which we call TRS in Texas.

Kate 00:28:59  Texas rising star. Texas rising star?

Carrie 00:29:02  Yes. so it's like, quality assurance programs in other states, but in Canada or in Seoul, you guys have different government validation standards that say this is a higher than required level of care at this center. So, they've gone, they've had their corporate accredited accreditation, and that got them to one level of care. But those don't exactly parallel what the state says is high quality care. and so.

Christy 00:29:40  That is actually something we have lobbied for. So we have I don't know if you all know this, but we have our own Primrose day during legislation and we go and we lobby. And that's one of the things we've lobbied for now that so many of us have achieved tiara status. We're like, we have to go through all of the same.

Christy 00:29:57  Basically the same, if not more, to receive our accreditation. Our national accreditation. Why can't that automatically transfer over?

Kate 00:30:07  And there's a lot of states that I know the primroses are are not just primrose because there are other, franchises, other privately run programs that have their own internal accreditation program. And so they're all kind of fighting that, that, that, that animal in Oklahoma.

Christy 00:30:24  And, and that's what's cool about our Advocacy Day is that it's not just Primrose. There's a group of us that go as Primrose, but we're also with Children's Lighthouse. We're with learning experience, like we're with all the, you know, franchises that are trying to achieve the same thing.

Kate 00:30:41  So, yeah.

Jeannette 00:30:43  And the convening she spoke of earlier we through early matters and there's a statewide coalition to of really matters and employers for child.

Christy 00:30:51  SEC.

Jeannette 00:30:52  Employees for child care. I can't remember the last one anyway. So we got the Chief of staff from the lieutenant governor's office and key staffers to sit in the room and listen to her talk about, I go to this entity first, and then if and then I go to this entity.

Jeannette 00:31:10  But if the time runs out, I have to start over here just how difficult it was. So I'm like, okay, I hear I was thinking we were doing this great thing for the kids, but maybe the great thing we're going to do is get get the state to fix the system.

Christy 00:31:24  I mean, it's true, but it's true.

Kate 00:31:25  In the state because you also have I mean, your city of Austin and Kerry has. Kerry ran for programs in the city of Austin.

Jeannette 00:31:32  So, yeah, the everything.

Kate 00:31:33  You got, the county municipality, you've got the city municipality. So you have the health, the fire, the the building code, the electric, the plumbing.

Carrie 00:31:43  And you're in a tiff. I mean, there's all kinds of stuff going on. Yeah.

Christy 00:31:47  Yeah. So so that's where we are.

Kate 00:31:49  If I remember right, you also were part of. So with Covid funds. Texas had a business partnership grant opportunity, and I know that there were very few of those across the street that were awarded, but you guys were one of them, weren't you?

Christy 00:32:07  Or are you talking about the child relief grants? Yes.

Kate 00:32:11  But didn't wasn't there one that was specifically for putting together a business, sir?

Christy 00:32:16  Oh, no. Maybe. But I don't think we I don't know. I don't know. All right. But I mean, I will I will say that the child relief grants were wonderful and we were very grateful for those.

Kate 00:32:28  Yeah. So so some states and I thought Texas had one. And for some reason I thought y'all were one of them. Some states did have where if you were a child care center and you were able to partner with a corporation to expand. Your size or.

Christy 00:32:46  Inhibit the cut off.

Kate 00:32:47  Okay.

Christy 00:32:48  It's coming back.

Jeannette 00:32:49  Okay.

Christy 00:32:50  Yeah. So the expansion has been open for one year. So this is all a little fuzzy, but okay. Yes, we were actively trying to get that grant and we, our window of we had to be open by a certain time and we missed it by like two months. So we did not qualify.

Kate 00:33:08  So okay.

Carrie 00:33:09  Okay.

Kate 00:33:10  So I just yes, I think that's I think that I mean from an industry that's incredibly regulated.

Kate 00:33:18  Yeah. You know insurance is pretty regulators. And I'm sure you probably thought okay I can I can deal with regulatory agencies. Right. Because you are you know. Yeah that's that's all your industry is. And then all of a sudden you're like, oh we have nothing. We are nothing compared. I mean.

Jeannette 00:33:32  There's a certain amount of efficiency in the insurance industry regulation. Actually. What I'm what I've learned on the the child care licensing and all the things, it's just because there's not one entity. So it's you're dealing with with really siloed processes in people. That's the big problem. We have one texture of insurance. That's true. You know.

Kate 00:33:52  The other thing with that is that in every state is different.

Jeannette 00:33:56  Yeah.

Kate 00:33:56  So every state how they fund their, their, their, quality, their quality improvement programs. That's different in every state. And, you know, so there's no, you know, we have 50 states, we have territories, but nobody does it the same. Yeah.

Kate 00:34:12  We have, you know, so forth and so on. And, you know, my father was insurance before he was anything else. And so I know that at least on a lot of levels, not that every state does their Department of Insurance the same, but you got big companies that come in and go, no, I'm not going to do it this different in 50 states. I might do it different ten times. But you all have to figure out how am I going to do it different ten times. I'm not doing it different 50 times.

Jeannette 00:34:37  There is an entity that helps align all of the they come up with model rules that people use.

Carrie 00:34:42  And it would be great if that happened in child care. But all we have is non-profit, It, you know, professional groups and volunteers.

Christy 00:34:53  That change positions and stuff like that. And so it's, it's like herding cats.

Kate 00:34:59  Yeah. And, and I mean, childcare programs that are part of franchises or large corporate entities and the small ones that are mom and pop that might own 1 to 10 locations but aren't part of a franchise.

Kate 00:35:15  they don't always play together nicely in the same sandbox. And so there's not a way necessarily, for this advocacy group to partner with this advocacy group to come together for a, a, a joint message, unfortunately, so that.

Carrie 00:35:32  Occasionally they will at the federal level, but they don't usually do it very much at the state level.

Christy 00:35:38  Right.

Jeannette 00:35:38  I will say the last couple of years in Texas, I've seen a lot more coalescing around the different groups. So it feels like people are much more aligned here. and then, I, I don't want to take credit for this because it's actually not me, but Emily Knight from the Texas Restaurant Association started advocating at the Capitol and people listened. So I oh, I think we all owe a great deal of debt to her. and so and now there's, like I said, way more statewide, focus and efforts people are talking about. I've gone to Amarillo to talk about it with business leaders there. I've gone to Odessa, Emily's holding events, this employers for Child Care task force all over the state.

Jeannette 00:36:19  So I do feel better. And it feels like there's more collaboration with the traditional advocacy that's happened. the childcare providers and nonprofits. But also, it just feels like there's more of a momentum happening.

Kate 00:36:33  What's really great, because once you start getting the restaurant industry in and other.

Carrie 00:36:37  Hospitality.

Kate 00:36:38  Let's say hospitality and healthcare, which have ebbed and flowed, sometimes you get health care all about child care and other times they kind of it disappears. But that should help. Child care centers across every state start to understand that. Now we have to look at not just 9 to 5 or even 6 to 6. We have to look at.

Christy 00:37:00  We know we'd.

Kate 00:37:01  Love to. We would love.

Christy 00:37:02  It because we've we've been approached, you know, especially here. It could be nights and weekends. so where we butt up against is our liability insurance won't cover it. interesting.

Kate 00:37:16  I feel like I feel like you need to have a conversation with some folks.

Christy 00:37:19  I know, just saying.

Kate 00:37:20  I'm like, there's a jab.

Christy 00:37:21  Jab.

Kate 00:37:22  That was that was actually when we first talked to. But they were doing this. I was like going. So just a mutual one I have some.

Christy 00:37:29  So it was like it, it would literally.

Jeannette 00:37:31  Be like a specific.

Christy 00:37:32  Type. I know.

Kate 00:37:33  I.

Christy 00:37:33  Know, it would literally.

Kate 00:37:34  Be like, I feel like I.

Christy 00:37:35  Do at our own risk. And then the second hurdle would be staffing. Yeah. You know, overnight and weekend staffing. so.

Kate 00:37:44  So the overnight and weekend staffing, I.

Christy 00:37:46  Mean, we could figure it out. I know.

Kate 00:37:48  That, like, I know you.

Christy 00:37:49  But I can't. We can't. If we can't insure it, we can't be open.

Jeannette 00:37:54  Yeah, yeah. There was a tax rate election in Travis County, which is where we are. And, they're collecting property tax dollars. Small amount coming out of individual, homeowners, but, or individual property owners, but huge impact potentially. And that's, you know, the, the folks that sort of helped spearhead that that was nontraditional care hours was a huge part.

Jeannette 00:38:18  So it's supposed to help with that. I don't know exactly how that's going to look. Yeah.

Kate 00:38:23  so I have a I have a quick.

Jeannette 00:38:24  One shared services kind of things.

Kate 00:38:26  With the insurance. Is it your insurance agent won't or it's cost prohibitive. Which part of that is.

Christy 00:38:32  I mean initial asking was won't. And we're finding, Liability is a whole other subject. Could be a whole podcast on that. Oh, there's there's schools. There's Primrose schools in the northeast that there. They just got dropped and they have no carriers. And we're like, what do you mean? Like we we have to have insurance. So anyway, but.

Kate 00:38:59  What is interesting is that there are some childcare centers that do fall under the they don't carry a they, they, they carry like the general like very general insurance because in Texas and in other states, as long as you tell the parents what you have, maybe not so much what you don't have, but what you have and you're what they consider full disclosure, you can operate even if it is not what most of us would consider optimal or.

Carrie 00:39:25  Or good business practices.

Kate 00:39:26  Business. Right.

Christy 00:39:27  Interesting I know.

Kate 00:39:28  Yes, but but this is and part of this is.

Christy 00:39:31  Curious about it.

Carrie 00:39:32  And it it I also know that there are some programs that literally this is a weird thing, but they literally have the parents come pick up the kid at, say, 630 and then bring the kid back at 645. And it is a separate license and it is a separate program.

Christy 00:39:51  But they have to pick up and drop.

Carrie 00:39:52  Back off. So they have to have 15 minutes where they leave. Wow. And so then the centers have.

Kate 00:39:57  Somebody picks them up. Somebody.

Christy 00:39:59  Right right.

Carrie 00:39:59  Right right. And so the centers have to.

Christy 00:40:01  Deal with them and walks.

Carrie 00:40:02  Back. And yeah, the centers have two different licenses. And so they're insured separately. For the nights and weekends.

Christy 00:40:10  Wow.

Carrie 00:40:11  because people are willing to, to figure out a way around. And that was one that I've.

Kate 00:40:19  Heard they have a separate business entity rent your program.

Christy 00:40:23  Have you met Primrose? Yeah. Just saying. I have to cover all.

Kate 00:40:31  My.

Christy 00:40:31  Logos.

Jeannette 00:40:32  Oh, goodness.

Carrie 00:40:33  Yeah.

Kate 00:40:34  That's another couple to cover my microphone.

Carrie 00:40:36  But, I mean, I think. But it is a huge issue that they there. Because there were drop in centers and the drop in centers were having higher rates of accidents and and citations because drop in centers don't know what kids are going to be there. They don't know how they need to staff because you don't know ahead of time how many children are going to be there. Right. They had more issues with licensing, which meant that their insurance rates went up.

Jeannette 00:41:04  Yes. Okay.

Carrie 00:41:05  And so I think that that's part of what's behind the, insurance companies being less willing to write for nights and weekends.

Christy 00:41:14  Okay.

Kate 00:41:14  Because they think of it as. And so it might be if you said we have regular families that it's not drop in and weekend like it's regular family, regular care. It's for health care. It's for hospitality industry.

Kate 00:41:27  Our kids would still have their 40 hours a week of care. It would be scheduled and structured. It's not dropping. in.

Carrie 00:41:35  Maybe so. Yeah.

Jeannette 00:41:36  Might be worth it to go back and.

Carrie 00:41:38  Go back and have another squat at it.

Christy 00:41:40  Have a primrose conference. I'll. Yeah, I'll throw it out there.

Carrie 00:41:43  I mean, I can go with you if you want. I'll talk to people. I'm willing.

Christy 00:41:46  And it doesn't hurt to ask.

Jeannette 00:41:48  Yeah.

Christy 00:41:48  I'm always nothing going on.

Carrie 00:41:49  Why not brainstorm new ways to. I mean, Primrose already is, you know, the most profitable franchise according to franchise or magazine in the industry. They can take that up even further because there's other people knocking on their door if they want to keep their rankings.

Christy 00:42:05  Yeah. Good point.

Carrie 00:42:07  Look at other options. Okay. We have been here, kept you guys longer than we thought we would because this is such an interesting.

Kate 00:42:16  Story for conversation. I'm like going I think we I know she kept trying to show me her phone.

Kate 00:42:19  I was like, I'm not looking.

Christy 00:42:22  It is it? this has been a fantastic, relationship and story and journey. we're quite proud of our school downstairs.

Kate 00:42:33  Would you tell another employer to do the same thing? And would you tell another Primrose? Absolutely. Go do this.

Christy 00:42:40  100%.

Jeannette 00:42:41  Yeah. No, absolutely. I think we should have employers thinking about how they can support not just their own staff's childcare. It's that's going to be transient, but a whole community. And I know that the demand for this centre is so great. And then I, I work out in our little gym and I watch the parents come and pick up their kids every day. I hear the children. Yeah, I absolutely am a huge advocate for it.

Carrie 00:43:05  And so has the parking been a huge problem?

Christy 00:43:08  No. Well, that's for me.

Kate 00:43:10  Maybe for y'all. Has a noise been a problem?

Jeannette 00:43:13  So we do have some employees that sometimes the screaming when the kids are outside.

Carrie 00:43:18  The happy scream.

Jeannette 00:43:19  The happy screams.

Jeannette 00:43:20  I personally like them, but.

Christy 00:43:22  I know and sorry I keep touching my mic. the the parking. It's just crunchy in the morning. It's just drop off and pick up. Yeah. You know, and everyone's in a hurry.

Jeannette 00:43:31  Yeah, we have less. It's less like our employees go into separate areas. So I think it's more the other tenants. Maybe there's some conflicts, but for our employees. Sorry for, like, the garage attendant.

Christy 00:43:44  Like, if if there's an angry mom, she can't get out of the garage. You know, that's like, oh, you know, like we're sorry. I'm sorry. But yeah.

Jeannette 00:43:53  But for.

Christy 00:43:53  The.

Jeannette 00:43:53  Most part, it hasn't the things that our employees or the leadership was afraid of. Yeah. We haven't seen.

Christy 00:43:59  It. It hasn't kept anyone from joining us, as a program. Yeah. So thank goodness.

Kate 00:44:06  Okay. Do you want.

Christy 00:44:06  To.

Carrie 00:44:07  So I just want to say that this was these guests were recommended to us.

Carrie 00:44:12  And so if you've got people you think should be on the podcast, let us know. Send them our way, and we'll be happy to have a great conversation with them about child care and the innovations that are happening in your program or in your community, and give you ideas. Kate and I are willing to come up with new, weird ideas where you just take all the children out of the building for ten minutes, and we hope to hear for you to listen to us, to be in the conversation again on our next episode. Definitely subscribe and we'll talk to you soon.

Marie 00:44:46  Thanks for tuning in. We love bringing you real talk and fresh insight from the world of early childhood education. Be sure to follow us on social media to stay connected and catch all of the latest episodes. And if you're planning a conference, training, or special event. Kate and Kerry would love to speak to your audience. You can learn more about their keynote sessions and workshops at Kate and Carrico. If you learned something today, share the show and leave us a review below.

Marie 00:45:17  We'll see you next time on Child Care Conversations.