Sherri Morini, Kate Chapdelaine and Fran Frere of Creative Kids.
Reminder Publishing submitted photo
WESTFIELD — Their business relationship has lasted longer than most marriages — partners Sherri Morini and Fran Frere are approaching four decades running the Creative Kids preschool together in Westfield.
“We each stay in our lane,” said Morini. “Fran takes care of the curriculum—I take care of purchasing and bookkeeping. We both work on hiring teachers.”
Founded in 1986, Creative Kids has schooled more than 4,000 students. When they enrolled, each was between three months and six years old. Some of those first students are now sending their own children to the pre-school. They are now alumni families, and they pay a discounted registration fee.
Many of Creative Kids’ graduates have gone on to work in business, the arts or humanities. Others are right back where they started.
“We have former students who are teaching at our school. They went to college and came back. Our little creative kids now are working for us. It’s fun to see them grow up and how they turned out,” said Morini.
Creative Kids focuses on the fundamentals: learning the alphabet, how to read and count.
But with the global economy demanding STEM majors (science, technology, engineering, and math), advanced learning starts now at the Westfield pre-school, where children hear about the life in the ocean from Larry the Lobster.
Geometry takes shape when they see tires on a fire engine as circles, windows as squares and the truck as a rectangle. “Our format is a little bit different, but it’s still learning,” said Frere. “They’re learning and having fun.”
Preschools in Massachusetts are regulated by the Department of Early Education and Care, which approves what and how children are taught. Frere and Morini say they closely follow department regulations as they create their curriculum.
The school’s programs operate from September to June, focusing on academics and social skills. It also operates in the summer with all-day programs that including special events and field trips.
When the school opened nearly 40 years ago, it offered half day programs, primarily helping stay-at-home mothers with their children.
These days there are no half-day programs. The school is open nearly every day, all day. “We’re always open. We don’t take a Christmas break, weeks off or any of that because parents need to work, and they need us to take care of their children,” said Frere.
The partners say not much has changed with their students over the years. “Kids are the same. Kids are kids,” said Morini.
But everything else is radically different. Early on, children learned math by playing in a toy grocery store and making change in a mock cash register. What they know now is packages come from online retailers and cash isn’t king.
“Toy grocery stores used to come with old fashioned, open the door, cash registers. Now they’re coming with slides for credit cards,” said Frere.
Frere and Morini work closely with local schools on what they need from incoming students. Public educators are hoping kindergarteners and first graders possess basic skills that go beyond knowing the alphabet and how to read.
Creative Kids also has a strong focus on teaching children how to be self-confident and independent. Teaching children in their charge to communicate well, and with civility, is becoming increasingly important as schools work to prevent bullying.
“The schools are looking for self-help skills, because when they get to school, the teachers don’t want to teach children how to put on coats and dress themselves to go out. We do a lot of that teaching. Even during lunch, being able to take out their food, putting it away and being nice to each other. That’s a big one,” said Morini.
Public schools, police and others in the community have ambitious, anti-bullying campaigns. But an important first step is working with schools like Creative Kids.
“They’re blank sheet as babies, but even if we get a child at three or four years old, you still have plenty of time to mold them, to change their ways,” said Morini.
Frere and Morini are hands-on business owners, working directly with every parent and child, using mobile phone apps to instantly send notices, alerts on what’s happening in school or pictures of kids at play. Some of the dispatches come minute-by-minute.
“Say their child is crying and having a hard time leaving them at drop off. That’s the last image that parent has of their child. So, as soon as they’re starting to smile and having a good time, which is usually within seconds of them leaving, we send the parent a picture of their child having fun,” said Morini.
If there is something they’re most proud of, Morini and Frere agree, it is keeping the business local for 38 years.
“We’re not a corporate school. Children and parents see us every day. We’re not absentee owners. We invest in the business and have loyal teachers who have been with us for decades,” said Morini. “We have old fashioned values, and that’s big.”
