Growing Place Annual Report 2019-2020

Annual Report 2019-2020

OCEAN PARK 401 Ashland Avenue MARINE PARK 1406 Marine Street SANTA MONICA EARLY CHILDHOOD LAB SCHOOL 1802 4th Street

Our Leadership The 2019-2020 school year brought unprecedented challenges like never before. School leaders and teachers around the globe learned to navigate education in the backdrop of a global health crisis with little guidance.

Specifically, the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the fragility of early childhood programs, the disparity between education and child care; how we define, fund, and govern schools and childcare has gained greater interest among parents, policymakers, and advocacy groups.

Childcare and early education have been acknowledged for the critical role it plays in our economy, and into the development and wellbeing of humanity.

These times are challenging. But I believe that it also presents an opportunity for the best in each of us to arise. Amid such stressful times, I am witnessing many ways our community is looking beyond their own interests, but also the interests of others. This provides me with deep comfort that we will work together as a community to not only grow stronger together in the face of this adversity but to come out of it with stronger ties to one another.

This report reflects the immense care shown by countless members in our Growing Place community.

I’m particularly proud of the work that went into re-articulating our mission statement - Our mission is to create a better world by helping children develop into confident, compassionate, and creative problem solvers - and I cannot think of a better time to focus our work to fulfill this mission.

In a year of hardship for so many, we’ve banded together to overcome our temporary closure and relaunch into our new in-person operations. I thank my teachers and directors for their unwavering commitment to the children who are full of potential and show up every day to reveal and unravel those potentials - despite the world around us, our educators create a safe and inspiring place to play and learn! And of course, thank you for your continued engagement with each other and our learning community, it makes me hopeful for the Growing Place and the field of early childhood education. Together, we are forging a path for learning, healing, and to carry out the school’s mission in new ways.

Pauline McPeake Pauline McPeake Executive Director

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From our Board Chair This year has been the most challenging in Growing Place’s 35 years of existence. The COVID-19 pandemic affected every child, parent, and teacher in our community in different ways. Our children's social and emotional development built on in-person connections with friends and teachers was arrested when we closed our campuses. Parents were cut off from high-quality care. Upon re-opening, we faced a challenging new landscape.

Although the public health and economic impacts of the pandemic continue to ripple through our community, I still see cause for optimism. Financial support from families and nimble actions by the school's leadership allowed Growing Place to successfully re-open.

Teachers created remote learning curriculum from scratch in record time and creatively re-imagined our campuses to comply with health guidelines while remaining true to our Reggio-inspired approach. The community bonds formed at the Growing Place sustained families even through shelter-in-place orders.

These times have been traumatic. We are weathered. But we are still here.

Because of these efforts, we can look forward to Growing Place’s continued ability to fulfill our mission of providing high-quality care for working families. This year, we undertook several significant actions toward that end. In August, we partnered with parents and teachers to write our first strategic plan to guide our future actions. In April, we completed the long-awaited renovation of the lower play yard at our Ocean Park campus. We also approved an industry-leading single rate tuition to lower the financial barriers to child care, making it more accessible to more families. And even though COVID has delayed the opening of our Lab School campus, we are still working towards that day, which will expand our ability to care for still more families.

Challenges remain ahead of us, but our values have helped us survive and will help us thrive. I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to Growing Place’s continued success and wish you and your family my best.

Jon P. Wong Dr. Jonathan P. Wong, PhD Chair, Board of Directors

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Board of Directors Joining Members in 2020 Allison Cobar

APARNA GUPTA

Vice Chair

The Growing Place holds a great deal of meaning and memories

Since 2018

for children and families--like our own--who have reaped the benefits of a progressive early childhood curriculum. Its excellent educators and administrative staff continually explore the potential

Jon Wong Chair

for learning and growth in our children, even in the most challenging of circumstances.

In doing so, they not only inspire the children in our community; they also advance the national conversation on the necessity of childcare for working families. My interest in

Since 2018

serving on the Board stems from a desire to expand the reach of the Growing Place to a broad and diverse array of families in our community.

Juan Bustamante Secretary

BRADY THURMAN

Since 2019

I'm honored to serve on the Growing Place Board to help the school continue providing a strong community for its families and incredible education for its children. I have developed the

Pauline McPeake

utmost confidence in Growing Place's leadership team and teachers, and my goal

Ex-Offio

Since 2011

is to help support them in every way possible. I have been particularly amazed by the school's strong commitment to its mission during these difficult times, and I look forward to serving current and future families to the best of my ability.

Scott Goldchain Co-Treasurer

GRACE MENG Since 2017 The Growing Place has been an amazing community for our entire family – our children are not the only ones who have

Shahad Shamji

learned so much from the school. I am truly honored to serve on the board and to do my part to ensure that the Growing

Co-Treasurer

Place has a strong future in which it continues to provide an incredible experience

Since 2016

to

many

families,

and

to

advance

its

vision

for

high-quality

early

childhood

education in Santa Monica and beyond.

Shannon Parry Since 2015

GRAHAM LUCAS I feel fortunate to be part of the Growing Place community and honored to serve on the Board. Our school's teachers and approach to early childhood education create an exceptional

William Lochran Since 2018

and unique experience. I am passionate about helping Growing Place continue to provide this experience to as many families as possible. I serve on the Executive Committee

and

as

the

lead

for

the

Fundraising

Committee.

I

am

excited

to

contribute to the Board's work and to serve the Growing Place Community in the coming years.

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Exiting Members, End of Term 2020 EMILY DAWE, 6 YEARS OF SERVICE In my six years as a member, Vice Chair, and Chair of the Growing Place Board of Directors, I have watched the organization and the Board’s role within the organization mature in a way that makes me proud. I know that Growing Place will always be a part of my heart and I look forward to hearing about the exciting

things

yet

to

come,

especially

the

opening

of

the

Lab

School,

guided

by

the

Strategic Plan and the strong leadership of the Board.

LETI MCNEIL LIGHT, 7 YEARS OF SERVICE

The last seven years have meant so much to my family and me as we have seen Growing Place itself grow as an organization. The leadership, teachers, parents, and children are a true community that enriches each other through learning and collaboration. To see the opportunities to participate in this community expanded to even more families, and to have had the chance to help make that possible, means the world to me. I will miss you, GP!

NISHI SHAH, 2 YEARS OF SERVICE I am proud to have been part of an incredible early education program as a parent and board member and to be able to represent a dedicated and loving GP community. During my time on the board, I supported the development of the strategic plan, the approval of the Lab School, and improved awareness of board-related endeavors through the communications task force.

I look forward to GP thriving in the coming years and continuing to provide a remarkable life-long foundation for new families like it has for mine.

STACEY LEE, 4 YEARS OF SERVICE Stacey contributed greatly to the finance committee; she led the board to develop our first "Reserve Policy" and supported the development of the business model for the SM Early Childhood Lab School. She also served on our Strategic Planning Committee.

BRIAN KRECHMAN, 5 YEARS OF SERVICE Brian's accomplishments to the Growing Place Board include serving as an officer of the Board in the position of Secretary. He also supported our Communications Committee and participated on our Strategic Plan Planning Committee.

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Budget Highlights This year's annual report is being written during the ongoing hardship posed by COVID-19, and the financial strain is one of the most difficult challenges we face as a community.

The rapidity of the pandemic's onset and the severity of the financial impact created extraordinary uncertainty, and the Finance Committee of the Board has worked closely with the Growing Place's leadership team to navigate the economic impact. We have been inspired by the tireless efforts of the school's leadership and their unwavering commitment to supporting Growing Place families and the broader community.

The Finance Committee is specifically responsible for providing fiscal oversight and ensuring the economic viability of the school over the long term. The Growing Place was on strong financial footing entering this crisis due to the responsible fiscal approach and generosity of families over many years, building up healthy reserves and a strong balance sheet with no outstanding debt. Before the crisis, the Board approved utilizing a portion of the reserves to execute an extensive lower yard and parking lot renovation at our Ocean Park campus. Marine Park had previously completed a similar renovation six years ago, and Ocean Park was long overdue to have its turn. Our two campuses are now among the very

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best on the west side, and we are happy to give our children and future children the play and learning spaces they so deserve. We also voted on and approved a new one rate tuition structure that our Board believes is in line with the mission of the school and will make Growing Place affordable for more families.

As we entered mid-March, the severity of the COVID-19 crisis strained every aspect of the school's operations and financial resources, and we were forced to adapt quickly. The Finance Committee thoroughly analyzed multiple scenarios to anticipate the potential impact of the crisis amidst extreme uncertainty.

As the school was required to close, our immediate response was to evaluate every costcutting measure available.

The leadership team was very nimble in quickly lowering its operating expenses to the minimum possible level. We also proactively applied for and received a PPP loan of $472,000.

The proceeds of this loan were passed along entirely to Growing Place families in the form of reduced tuition over four-months (April - July).

We continue to remain cautious as expenses exceed revenues as we reopened at reduced capacity.

Growing Place also operated at a deficit in the 2018-2019 school year due to unplanned expenses, and more importantly, we seized the opportunity to invest in

the pedagogy of our program through the Reggio Emilia International Study tour that our teachers attended. The Finance Committee is therefore critically focused on continuing to manage reserves. We continue working alongside the school's leadership team as the pandemic constantly evolves, and no decision is without compromise or hardship. All financial decisions are guided by our closely-held values to ensure the school's survival, support Growing Place families and educate its children to the best of our abilities, and honor the efforts of the school's greatest asset - its teachers. We have continued to compensate our teachers with full pay, and they have worked very hard to offer effective virtual learning and successfully reopen the campuses.

We are extremely confident in Growing Place's leadership team and teachers, and we thank them for all their efforts.

Lastly, we would like to acknowledge the financial hardship so many families are facing, and we sincerely appreciate your continued support of the Growing Place and investment in the education of our children.

Expenses

2018/19

2019/20

Staff Salaries $ 2,029,370

$ 2,266,263

Staff Benefits $

465,104

$

468,580

Rent, Utilities, Operations $

461,304

$

384,153

Tuition Assistance $

148,576

$

136,394

Curriculum & Materials $

85,758

$

57,659

Professional Development $

149,304

$

20,794

Revenues Tuition & Fees $

2,717,121

$

2,490,011

Annual Investment Campaign $

170,500

$

184,737

Spring Fundraiser $

88,979

$

182,750

$

182,750

$

9,026

$

500

PPP Loan

$

472,000

EIDL Loan

$

160,000

Grants Human Services, City of SM $ Connections for Children $ Technical Assistance, City of SM $

Liabilities SBA Loans

The Finance Committee: Brady Thurman Scott Goldchain (Co-Treasurer) Shahad Shamji (Co-Treasurer)

Growing Place is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization

Our budget highlights reflect our fiscal year August 1, 2019 through July 31, 2020

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ANNUAL INVESTMENT CAMPAIGN Thanks to generations of donors, Growing Place has been able to flourish and grow into one of the most notable high-quality early childhood programs in Santa Monica.

Everything that our children enjoy today is made possible by the generosity of parents, alumni, grandparents, friends, and staff who believe that an investment in our school is a worthy commitment.

As a non-profit organization, we rely on philanthropic support to attract and retain outstanding teachers; remain accessible to a diverse family population; and, most importantly, enrich the early learning experiences of our children.

Every year, we ask our community to support our school with a tax-deductible contribution helping us to provide every child, parent, and staff member with a quality experience. Our Annual Investment Campaign contributes 9% of our annual operating budget - and 100% of the joy, learning, and friendships that blossom at Growing Place.

$184,737 Total Raised

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"The one who plants trees, knowing that he will never sit in their shade, has at least started to understand the meaning of life.

Rabindranath Tagore

When I joined the Growing Place Board of Directors, there was no shortage of excitement to lend my experience and expertise to a learning community that gives so much to my two sons and our family each day.

I was eager to join the Fundraising Committee to support the school’s strategic plan to expand fundraising beyond its parent donation base.

Reflecting on my first year, I am proud of everything we have accomplished as a Board and Fundraising Committee. With great enthusiasm and optimism, we completed our first draft of a fundraising policy that defines the framework and set of practices that align with our mission.

COVID has shined the light on how critical early childhood education is in our personal lives, our community, and the nation. Now more than ever the Board and I are committed not only to the school’s financial future but the legacy that we will leave for future generations. The legacy that parents before us left enabled us to weather these challenging storms. My goal and duty are to help us leave the same legacy for future students and families, so they can weather the challenges they may face.

My wife, Laura, and I are proud to be Growing Place Parents, volunteers, and donors. I continue to be humbled of the generosity by those who love Growing Place best.

Thank you for your support and contributions.

Graham Lucas Fundraising Committee Board of Directors

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Our Mission Growing Place is special. It was clear to me even from my first tour: in the interactions between parents, teachers, and students; the way that classrooms transform as the students lead with their curiosity and imagination; the thoughtfulness and depth of knowledge that informs each decision. When you find something special, it's often difficult to describe exactly what makes it that way, but for the Growing Place, I felt that this exercise was important. As the community grows and evolves, having a clearly articulated set of beliefs, principles, and values helps to align the decisions that everyone makes -- whether they're a new parent or teacher who has been there for 20 years -around a common goal. I had the privilege of working with Pauline, Heidy, and Losmeiya, while drawing upon input from the staff and my own experiences at GP, to put together a framework describing what we, as a community, believe in. Through this work, I hope that every new child, parent, and teacher joining the Growing Place can feel that same sense of being a part of something special that I did.

Eric Lee Partner at Left Field Labs Marine Park Parent

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Our mission is to create a better future by helping children develop into 3

confident, compassionate, and creative problem solvers.

4

5

6

Our unique program unifies children, parents and teachers 7

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into a community that learns together.

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1

Alluding to our purpose; the end result of work

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Active verb; implies all parties must be active

2

The core service that we provide, our area of expertise

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Sets expectation of involvements between all of these parties

3

Speaks to the core values that we believe are important, and that our program seeks to foster

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The greater container in which learning takes place

4

Differentiates us from trendy / less established programs

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Connects all the pieces, also alludes to the tagline of "We learn together"

Our Values What is the impact that we design our program to have on our students? What is the core value that underpins their interactions and guides their learning during their time at the Growing Place?

What do we expect of teachers, in their interactions with students, each other, and improving the field of ECE? How do we support our teachers along their own journey, from learning to becoming experts and advocates?

How does the relationship between parent, child, teacher, and community yield the greatest benefit?

What do we ask of parents, which enables our program to be uniquely powerful and successful?

How to we involve, enrich, and contribute to the success of our community? How do we take our values and learnings, and use them to benefit Santa Monica, the field of ECE, and eventually the world?

What is the hopeful impact of our work on the world?

This value anchors us in our grand objective - the highest order aspiration we hope our efforts will achieve for the world. If we hold to this value, we have the potential to see it come to pass.

What action is the catalyst to our type of thinking? How do we forge foundations, and envision and create a better future? This value ensures that we always seek to push ourselves toward achieving our goals.

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What

How

Help children develop into confident, compassionate, and creative problem solvers

Create a unique collaborative between children, parents, and teachers

Why

Core Message

Build a better future

We Learn Together

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WE LEARN TOGETHER at home

As early childhood educators, our work is never easy but it can be predictable. GP teachers design school days with, defined parameters, entrenched routines, and readable expectations. All of these constraints are intentionally designed to give children a sense of absolute intellectual and creative freedom with them. It’s a paradoxical tenet of quality early childhood education. Yet, the pandemic flipped this script completely. Overnight, we teachers lost our hold on every part of the day we usually control. What is a class without a classroom? What is a school without a campus? These are the questions we had to answer - fast.

But how?

As someone wise once said: We can’t go over it.

We can’t go under it....

We’ve got to go through it.

We started as we always do when decisions need to be made: with a frank discussion about what we value. Connection. Relationships. Inquiry. Lived experience. Then we established our very real constraints: Distance. Uncertainty. Anxiety. But we also had to remember our resources: tools like Parent Square, G-Suite, Zoom, and Youtube. Even better, we still had each other.

As we took our first leap across the digital divide, we didn’t know how it would all work out. How long could children even sit at a computer? Yet the children did what they always do, they learned alongside us. From our first tentative virtual morning meetings, we saw that the children were still with us, even if not in the ways we expected last August.

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Maybe we can do this, we thought. As co-learners, we developed new skills and ways of understanding a rapidly-changing world. Yet amid so much uncertainty, the children’s innate willingness to connect with and understand others remained constant, which charged their growth. Over a matter of weeks, the children became experienced conference callers, content creators, and IT experts. But more than that, they stayed curious, engaged. They stayed friends.

To overcome our obstacles, we had to dig deep into our reservoir of imagination, test our theories, and iterate based feedback we received from the community exactly the process we facilitate in our classrooms. Was the experience perfect? Of course not. But was it meaningful? Absolutely. Learning is about leveraging curiosity as the antidote to challenge and, as it turned out, not even a pandemic could change that.

COVID-19 has a way of illuminating truths and circumstances that have previously been taken for granted. For us, the pandemic revealed more than ever that our community is made up of multifaceted, flexible, and intelligent people. We learned to play to our strengths and see each other’s unique skills, talents, and insights with new eyes. Parent partnerships, likewise, came to mean something more literal and essential than ever. From hours spent troubleshooting Zoom and photographing projects to share with teachers, to diving into heavy, hard dialogues around pandemic anxiety and the struggle for black lives, parents met us where we were - on the cusp of a new world, one still in the making.

This trial has taught us, more than ever, that school is not made of walls, spaces, or materials. A school is made up of people who learn together, no matter where they happen to be.

Micah Card Growing Place Teacher and Writer of No Magic Lecture, a blog about teaching, learning and living alongside young children.

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Investing in Play My dad always had a knack for turning old things into new. A used car, an old camera; dusty things he’d find at a flea market or a yard sale.

He’d study the object, and fix it up into something a little more beautiful and a little more magical. He has taught me that if you know how to look, everything has possibilities and potential.

When I joined Growing Place, I was in awe of what was already here blocks from the Pacific Ocean on an acre of land - we had flora, fauna, sand, water, and sky. It was all there, and yet I could sense a longing for deeper ways to cultivate relationships and wonder amongst us.

Singer Debby Boone says “Dreams are the seeds of change. Nothing ever grows without a seed, and nothing ever changes without a dream.”

When Pauline pulled out old tracing papers with sketches of what could be, I was excited to resurrect a dream, whose seeds had been planted many years ago. The more we talked, the more people joined, the louder our voices grew. Soon, it became abundantly clear - this was the year our dream would become a reality.

Of course, parents partner with us in the development of their children.

But more courageously, they are multi-dimensional human beings with expertise and passions not just as parents of young children, but as individuals with a desire to contribute to society and invest in education that transcend their years in our schools.

In our three decades of history, every few years, a truly special opportunity arises where parents make a larger impact that becomes a legacy. This year, through the vision and commitment from parents Sabina and John Kim, and Eric Rutgers our long-awaited dream became a reality. They dedicated countless hours to create an environment that mirrored our oceanside context, reflected the diversity of nature, and provided a myriad of rich experiences. These parents labored with love and even brought on their connections and colleagues in the field of architecture and landscape to bring this project to life.

I hope someday my dad can make it to the westside to see that we’ve taken something a little dusty and old, and made it a little more beautiful and a little more magical. We stand on the shoulders of giants - families before us who have contributed time and resources because they believed we were building a better future together. They held onto a shared belief that all children, now and those to come, deserve to have a childhood marked by relationships and discoveries full of joy and hope, endlessly filled with possibility and potential.

Losmeiya Huang 15

Losmeiya Huang Campus Director, Ocean Park

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FRIENDS AFTER GROWING PLACE No matter where our children and families graduate to after their time at Growing Place, they take with them a joyful preschool experience and are ready to engage with a new learning community. Once a Growing Place friend, always a Growing Place friend - we're always eager to hear from our alumni; whether in elementary school or college, we hope our graduates keep a part of us in their hearts and minds!

OUR 2020 GRADUATES ARE JOINING THE FOLLOWING ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS: Brentwood School Broadway Elementary Canyon Charter School Citizens of the World Couer D'Alene School Edison Language Academy Franklin Elementary Grant Elementary John Muir Elementary John Thomas Dye School Le Lycee Francais de Los Angeles Linwood E. Howe Elementary Mar Vista Elementary McKinley Elementary School Santa Monica Alternative School House Short Avenue Elementary UCLA Lab School Walgrove Elementary Westside Neighborhood School Will Rogers Learning Community Willows Community School 17

PROFESSIONAL CONNECTIONS NAEYC National Association for the Education of Young Children, 1989

Santa Monica Early Childhood Task Force, 1990 WCC West Coast Collaborative, 2004 RIE Resources for Infant Educarers, 2007 NAREA North American Reggio Emilia Alliance, 2008 Zero to Three, 2009 LAPP Los Angeles Preschool Partnership, 2015 Reggio Children Recognized by Reggio Children, 2018 NCCCC National Coalition for Campus Children's Centers, 2018 NAIS National Association of Independent Schools, 2019 Santa Monica College Ellen Khokha, Founder Pauline McPeake, Executive Director Christine Richard, Pedagogista SMC Adjunct Faculty Promote collaboration between our institutions

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SPECIAL THANKS it's through our parents and partners that we grow!

Current Parents:

Eric Lee, Partner at Left Field Labs Davud Karbassioun for virtual tour filming

Our Alumni Parents who provided resources to our parents and teachers virtually through our COVID-19 closure:

Alexa Fischer, Wishbeads Ben Swett, Early Engagement Brad Barrish, Technical support and cyber security training Heather Turgeon and Julie Wright, The Happy Sleeper Judy Kwon, Comedian Rachel Langer, Mindfulness Practices Ronnie Vehemente, LCSW Agencies that Support our Organization

Connections for Children Child Success Center St. Johns Providence, Pinwheel Project RIOS Design Firm

Thank you to

for extending a non-profit discount

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