CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19) RESOURCE CENTER Read More
Add To Favorites

Farmington child care center prepares for preschool option

Times West Virginian - 7/22/2018

July 22--Little Rascals Child Care in Farmington celebrated its fourth anniversary in May.

The owners of the center, Melissa and Rudy Cutrone, opened the business when a separate daycare located in the building closed.

"May 5 was four years for us," Rudy said. "This was a daycare before, we're the third ones here, there were two before us and we just wanted to be able to help people."

After four years of working with kids, taking care of them daily and acting as surrogate teachers and educators for the youngsters, the couple has become more comfortable than ever in their positions.

"You've got to show them ways to solve a conflict," Melissa said. "We've had good practice, and it's learning as you go. You find things that work and you find things that don't and you just move on to the next conflict. It's working out."

With a background of education in business, Melissa explained that she wanted to get into an industry with a needed demand in the area of Farmington. Melissa received all the necessary certifications and was able to open a daycare of her own.

"We're STARS registered, we're all CPR, first aid registered," Melissa said. "We all have the training that we all need, the training they require us to have."

With these four years of experience down, the next endeavor the Cutrones are pursuing is preschool enrollment, the session for which begins this fall.

"We're kind of adding things as we go just to help people out and give people another place to come," Rudy said. "We're starting preschool here for 3-year-olds and next year we're going to add it for 4-year-olds."

The daycare is already prepared to take in children from ages 6-months to 12 years old, but will be able to provide preschool-level education to kids who are enrolled in the program.

"We have some that who come and go," Melissa said. "As people go we have more people coming in.

"We have children since we opened that have been here; we do have kids who have been here since day one."

Melissa said she and her staff already act as teachers to the kids in their care, working on character development and conflict resolution daily. She explained that one of the biggest challenges she has faced while working at the center is working with the differing and growing personalities of her students.

"Their characters clash," Melissa said. "Some kids, they're at that age where all they want to do is argue.

"You've got to find ways to solve a conflict with them, show them that there are ways. Sharing and no name-calling and things like that."

However, her and Rudy's experience as parents has also prepared them for the work, they just had to get used to caring for a large group simultaneously.

"Just being a mother of two and constantly around kids," Melissa said. "Because of the level we are, it's 35 kids here at one time. But we can have 60 kids enrolled but only 35 here at one time, but that's good because that's a manageable number."

Overall, Rudy and Melissa just hope to provide the Northern area of Marion County with childcare services and tailor their business practices toward that goal. Melissa explained that they only require a minimum of three days of care, charging $25 per day, with $26 for the baby room, which covers the supervision as well as meals.

"Most of the daycares, even if you're there for three or four days you pay for the whole week," Melissa said. "So we opened, we said 'Ok, a minimum of three days, and that's all you pay for.' And a lot of people are good about that. Some people want part-time daycare, some people need full daycare so we give them the option."

The center houses toys and games for the kids to play with, and an outside playset for outdoor activity as well.

The supervisors will also take the kids on trips to parks and pools for other forms of activity from time to time.

"We do have a summer program," Rudy said. "We take the kids to the pool, they've taken them to play miniature golf... we're thinking about taking them to the zoo."

"It's called 'Fun Fridays' for our school-aged kids," Melissa added.

With four years down, the work done by Melissa and her staff is what they hope to continue doing, expanding on their center and keeping it going for the people of Marion County.

"The biggest sticking point with daycares is people can't afford it," Rudy said. "We're trying to make it to where anybody can afford it.

"We basically try and help everyone, whether they need one day, two days, if they need a half day, we do snow days, after school."

For more information on Little Rascals Child Care, call 304-825-6900. Rudy said students need to be enrolled the fall semester of preschool by mid-August.

Email Eddie Trizzino at etrizzino@timeswv.com and follow him on Twitter at @eddietimeswv.

___

(c)2018 the Times West Virginian (Fairmont, W. Va.)

Visit the Times West Virginian (Fairmont, W. Va.) at www.timeswv.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.