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f you thought the baby boom ended back in1964, you don’t know the community just westof campus.That section of Denver is so swarming withchildren, says Sloan Armstrong (pictured), that sheand her husband, Jarrett, opened up a new franchiseof the Goddard School for early childhood educationin late September. When they did, the school brokea company record for opening day attendance thathad stood for 30 years.“Out of 370 schools, we had the biggest openingday,” Armstrong says proudly. “We have 125 kids, 18teachers and two directors.”Not bad for the new school, where the mainfloor seems as if it’s toddling-room-only and there’sa waiting list for infants and 1-year-olds. Barelyweeks into its first year, Goddard Denver at 1400S. Emerson St. was already edging toward its capacityof 143. And the school — the 17th in Colorado —hasn’t even launched its programs for kindergartenor school-age youngsters.“Each Goddard school can make [program]decisions based on demand from the community,and it seems like the demand here is for the youngerages,” says Armstrong (BA ’05).The popularity shouldn’t be a surprise. DU’sFisher Early Learning Center — which opened in2000 — is so popular it only accepts new studentsselected in an annual lottery. Goddard isn’t as in-demand at that, but Armstrong is pleased with how the early childhood school hasgotten off the ground.“We were expecting to pull from all over, but surprisingly it’s mostly neighborhood people,” she says. “I’m very pleased at howwelcoming the community has been.”Like Fisher, the Goddard program is about early childhood education, not day care. Kids aren’t warehoused, they’re taught. The goalis to impart skills, encourage literacy and instill a love of learning — even for kids as young as 6 weeks. And all in a converted officebuilding that used to be headquarters for the Denver Home Builders Association. Armstrong and her husband, a commercial real estate developer, converted the two-story, 8,700-square-foot structure into cozyclassrooms last summer while also running the Aurora Goddard school. That institution has about 200 kiddos, as Sloan Armstrongaffectionately calls them, and about 28 teachers.The Denver and Aurora Goddard schools follow the model developed under the Goddard system — a nationwide for-profit early-childhood education franchise company. Goddard began in Malvern, Penn., in 1986 as the inspiration of Anthony Martino, founderof Aamco Transmissions and Maaco Auto Painting and Bodyworks. The company currently has preschool child-care franchises in 37states. Armstrong — who went by Amanda Anderson in her DU days and majored in voice and minored in business — says her life was abit unsettled until she met her husband, a former investment banker who scouted properties for Goddard owners.“He said, ‘You’d be good at this,’ and I said, ‘Are you crazy?’” she recalls. “But I took a leap of faith and it ended up being absolutelyperfect for me.”The pair opened the Aurora school in March 2009 and the Denver school this year. Now Armstrong is building a business she believesin and providing opportunities for DU students, too. One teacher is pursuing a master’s degree at DU and an assistant is majoring inearly childhood education.But the best part, Armstrong says, is creating a learning environment for students and letting teachers be creative in teachingeverything from art, music and dance to nutrition, manners and math. Spanish, too.“It’s not just that the kids are learning their ABCs but knowing they are happy,” Armstrong says. “That’s really rewarding.”
—Richard Chapman
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r early learners
Swarm of kiddos land at new Goddard preschool near DU
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January 2011 Community News
Inside:
*Murray Armstrong
*Sustainability summit
*Bike program
*New preschool
*Murray Armstrong
*Sustainability summit
*Bike program
*New preschool
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