ANNUAL REPORT 2008 - 2009

A Message from the Executive Director

Dear Friends of Childcare Learning Centers:

Childcare Learning Centers (CLC) is truly Stamford 's “crown jewel” as evidenced by the new level of service and quality we have achieved over the last 12 months. Even before the downturn in the economy, CLC had enormous challenges to overcome. Our management, teachers, and staff exceeded our expectations in meeting our goals this year. I am most proud of the opening of our new state of the art facility, the CLC Maple Avenue Child Development Center , which is only Phase 1 of our strategic plan to consolidate our facilities from 14 to 3 major sites in our efforts to increase the number of children we serve in the community. Our new facility will become the pilot site for our Yale Partnership Lab School where the best education models of tomorrow will be devised and practiced today.

In the midst of all the excitement over our new facility, we achieved top scores in all our NAEYC accreditations and ACF reviews. Head Start and Early Head Start programs receiving these outstanding scores included our classrooms at Martin Luther King, Jean Hudgens, Quintard, Forest Street , Lathon Wider, and Rippowam, as well as our delegate in Greenwich . Our School Readiness classrooms at Stillmeadow received top NAEYC accreditation scores as did our Child Development classrooms at Westover, Rogers , Franklin Commons and Yerwood.

In addition we expanded our Breakthrough to Literacy program in all our School Readiness classrooms at our William Pitt, Stillmeadow, and Lathon Wider sites. Test scores from the past year demonstrate that our 4 year olds enter kindergarten well prepared to succeed, both academically and socially, including knowing nearly all their letters and associated sounds. We are hopeful that we will continue to find donors who are interested in helping us replicate this great program to all our classrooms at CLC. The Legg Mason Reading program at Palmer's Hill Child Development Center has become a model for corporate reading programs across the agency that will be utilized as we begin our Pitney Bowes reading program at Maple Avenue and as we expand our KPMG reading program at William Pitt.

To address the challenges of the current economy, we restructured our administrative functions and reduced our annual expenditures by approximately $1.2 million with minimal impact to the quality of our programming, service to our families, and professional development and continuing education for our teachers. As a result, CLC continues to operate in a leaner and more efficient manner. CLC senior management also partnered with the Harvard Business School Club of Connecticut Community Partners to examine and refine our organization business model.

Many of our faculty acquired their CDAs, Certificates in Early Childhood Education, Associates degrees and Bachelors degrees. More than 50% of our Assistant Teachers and Teacher Aides have obtained a CDA or equivalent, exceeding the NAEYC requirement and more than 75% of all our teaching staff have acquired their credentials or degrees. Thirty-four percent (34%) of our Teachers and Head Teachers have a degree in Early Childhood.

I am very grateful for the support we received this year from our donors, our board members, and our Leadership Council. Their personal time and devotion to CLC's mission is a wondrous gift to the children and families we serve. Together, along with our management team, teachers and staff, we are building a brighter future for our community. They are the sparkle in Stamford 's crown jewel.

Barbara Garvin-Kester
Chief Executive Officer