Spanish Immersion Daycare and Preschool

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Heather Reekie – Casa de Corazón

 

Podcast Overview:

00:00 “Bilingual Boost at Casa”
06:54 “Acquiring a Language-Focused Property”
16:20 “Connected to Franchise Core Values”
17:17 “Eco-Friendly Childcare Practices”
23:33 Franchisee Frustration with Franchisors
29:09 “Teachers Genuinely Care Deeply”
33:39 “Raising Thriving, Empathetic Early Learners”
42:15 Playground Requirements and Safety Standards
44:48 “Overcoming Leadership and Loan Challenges”
53:19 “Staff Excellence and Parent Resources”
59:12 Infant Curriculum and Monthly Themes
01:02:37 Storm Shelter and Flags Display
01:07:09 “Elevator and Furnace Challenges”

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Podcast Transcription:

Heather Reekie [00:00:00]:
But the Casa app is special to the Casa brand and it’s real time updates on what your child is doing throughout the day, including photos. So that’s throughout the day innovation. Yep, yep. And so you know, like no notates when the child falls asleep for rest time or what they, you know, how much of the lunch they ate and you know when they used the bathroom or had a diaper change and that kind of thing.

James Kademan [00:00:23]:
Holy cow. So that’s cool.

Heather Reekie [00:00:26]:
It’s informative and just fun to interact with as well.

James Kademan [00:00:35]:
You have found Authentic Business Adventures, the business program that brings you the struggle stories and triumphant successes of business owners across the land. Downloadable audio episodes can be found on the podcast link found drawincustomers.com we are locally underwritten by the bank of Sun Prairie and today we’re welcoming slash preparing to learn from Heather Ricci of I’m going to destroy this. But I don’t mean to Casa de Corazón remotely close Casa de Corazón and I just learned is that House of Hearts.

Heather Reekie [00:01:05]:
House of Hearts. House of Love.

James Kademan [00:01:07]:
All right, very cool. So let’s go on. What do you do, Heather?

Heather Reekie [00:01:12]:
Well, so I’m the owner operator of Casa de Corazon Madison, which is a franchise from the corporate offices which are in Minnesota and we opened almost exactly two years ago, November 15th of 2023.

James Kademan [00:01:28]:
Nice.

Heather Reekie [00:01:28]:
And so I am trying to keep.

James Kademan [00:01:31]:
Running the place and this place, I gotta say, this place is huge. I expected a little daycare and this is. We’re in two story building.

Heather Reekie [00:01:41]:
Yes.

James Kademan [00:01:42]:
In what I would consider to be the southern heart of Madison. So we get the belt line right here and all that. So I got a lot of questions for you, so let’s just knock it out first. So Heather, tell me about the Spanish immersion.

Heather Reekie [00:01:54]:
So that’s the icing on the cake of just a really high quality childcare and preschool situation. Here at Casa de Corazón, Spanish immersion is help helping grow the synapses in the children’s brain. So even if you don’t go on to a bilingual or Spanish immersion elementary school after attending casa, you will have reaped the benefits of growing your brain cells by becoming bilingual or learning a second or sometimes in some cases a third language. Because what it does is it gives you multiple words for the same vocabulary and the same sentence structure. And all you’re just learning all of these ways to think about language. It increases your empathy, it increases your ability to start talking at a younger age and communicate your thoughts and feelings. One mom told me about her two children who attend here. They’re siblings and they speak in Spanish when they’re playing together at home.

James Kademan [00:03:00]:
It’s oh nice.

Heather Reekie [00:03:01]:
Sounds really adorable. And then they’re code switching when they’re talking to her because they know that she’s not fluent in Spanish like they are and so they’ll switch to English to talk to.

James Kademan [00:03:10]:
I’m just imagining a pair of kids that know a language that the parents don’t. I don’t know if it’s good or bad.

Heather Reekie [00:03:14]:
Yeah, it could be fun.

James Kademan [00:03:16]:
Interesting. So the, the age. I guess I never asked you that. What are the ages that attend here?

Heather Reekie [00:03:23]:
We are licensed to provide care for children starting at six weeks and then up through school age. So we have had some school age children attend on days off of school school, you know, old older siblings a lot of times and also in the summer when they’re not in public school or the school year school and but technically the franchise caters to birth through four year old kindergarten.

James Kademan [00:03:52]:
Okay.

Heather Reekie [00:03:52]:
Right before they would go to 5 year old kindergarten in an elementary school.

James Kademan [00:03:57]:
Tell me. So the daycare is way back when I had to deal with daycares and stuff like that when I had a kid. I shouldn’t say I did, my wife did. I didn’t have anything to do with it, but I learned from other people that there’s wait lists and all that other kind of stuff. Where are you guys at with the wait list? Or is there a wait list or that whole people can’t find daycare anywhere? Is that still a thing?

Heather Reekie [00:04:19]:
It can be, yes. Because we’re still Fairly new at 2 years old, we have been able to enroll children for their desired start date. So we do have a wait list. It’s through the branded CASA app it’s called. And we keep track of families based on when they tour and when they want to enroll their child. And for certain ages, the younger the child wants to be enrolled, those are our smaller classrooms with lower teacher to student ratios. So those ones fill up more quickly. And then because we’re still like the children who started with us at a young age haven’t grown into be a three year old and able to attend or be enrolled in one of our older age level classrooms where the ratios increase so those classrooms are not full.

Heather Reekie [00:05:20]:
And we are sitting in one of our our 11th classroom which we haven’t opened yet. We’ve opened the other 10, but this is our pre K room. The franchise calls it pre K which is essentially a four year old kindergarten classroom because we are currently combining the three And a half year olds and four year olds together.

James Kademan [00:05:39]:
Okay.

Heather Reekie [00:05:40]:
In our two preschool B classrooms. So there’s a little multi age learning going on right now and so we have more capacity to enroll those older children right now.

James Kademan [00:05:54]:
Well, I imagine if somebody starts with you at birth or early, whatever, six weeks that they’ll go with you through until they get to school age, is.

Heather Reekie [00:06:03]:
That safe to say that is the, the most beneficial way to benefit from a Spanish immersion environment.

James Kademan [00:06:10]:
Yeah.

Heather Reekie [00:06:11]:
And just the high quality education and the loving teachers. Yeah. Yes. That is the, the corporate idea is that the children would start with us, you know, as soon as they find out about us whether their babies are a little bit older and then. Yes. Stay through that four year old year and then possibly go to kindergarten when they’re five or six.

James Kademan [00:06:32]:
That’s cool. That’s super cool. They’ll find out about you on a podcast. So it’s all good. Tell me, how did you end up. A couple years ago you opened this place. So let’s first talk about location. So to me this is pretty, I mean you can get to this place anywhere pretty easily.

James Kademan [00:06:51]:
So how did you end up in this building?

Heather Reekie [00:06:54]:
I had hired a broker to find a location and there just weren’t a lot that were in a price range that I could afford. And so we looked at several options but kept coming back to this. And this used to be Geo Co. Geo Group, which did translations in all different languages for like manuals and, and auditory, verbal, you know, and written translations. I’m sure they did way more than that. But they occupied this building for like 30 years and so they were able to sell it knowing that it was going to be renovated, I believe. So that’s why I was able to work with them to purchase the property and that I know I wanted to purchase the building instead of renting and they’re, you know, we kind of exhausted the rental options as well and it just kept coming back to this. And the owner, the previous owners were like, they’re very, we’re very pleased that another language centered business was going into this.

James Kademan [00:08:04]:
Awesome. That’s awesome. And it’s always cool when you’re working with something like that. It’s a big deal. But people understand it’s not just numbers that there’s like, I don’t know if you sell a car to someone that’s going to take care of the car versus just, I don’t run it into a tree or something like that or. Yeah, they like that language thing. That’s super cool.

Heather Reekie [00:08:23]:
Yeah. The relationships Created along the way are pretty. Pretty awesome.

James Kademan [00:08:27]:
That is incredible. How long did the build out take?

Heather Reekie [00:08:30]:
Let’s see, 9ish months, I want to say. Okay.

James Kademan [00:08:35]:
Was that the plan?

Heather Reekie [00:08:36]:
I believe so, yeah.

James Kademan [00:08:37]:
Oh, nice.

Heather Reekie [00:08:38]:
We wanted to open in September of 2023. I think it was like the final touches were still being put on in October, but we could have opened, you know, because you don’t start full capacity. Right. So. And then it was just a matter of getting licensed.

James Kademan [00:08:54]:
All right, so tell me about that, because I have no idea what it takes to get licensed.

Heather Reekie [00:08:59]:
That is a big undertaking. And just making sure you have all your ducks in a row. I mean, there we are going to be taking care of kids. So it’s very important to make sure that everything is safe and secure and ready to go.

James Kademan [00:09:15]:
And is this, hey, we got to make sure the windows don’t unlock easy. Or you have enough fire extinguishers and.

Heather Reekie [00:09:20]:
Stuff like that or all of those things.

James Kademan [00:09:22]:
All those things.

Heather Reekie [00:09:23]:
And for just the education of the young child, we needed to make sure that we had all of the educational materials, furniture, everything that you would need to have a classroom.

James Kademan [00:09:34]:
They look at curriculum or anything like that.

Heather Reekie [00:09:37]:
Not necessarily. However, that is part of getting licensed. You have to have an educational. You have to have a parent handbook that describes like what. What you’re going to do with the children when.

James Kademan [00:09:52]:
All right.

Heather Reekie [00:09:52]:
In your care all day.

James Kademan [00:09:53]:
So stick them in front of a TV and walk away. Right.

Heather Reekie [00:09:56]:
And so the. So that is part of it. But the licensing is only about health and safety. It’s not necessarily about the education part of it, but you do have to have the basic things covered.

James Kademan [00:10:10]:
Okay. And then as far as the teachers, I imagine, tell me about them with what knowledge they have to have or licenses or whatever.

Heather Reekie [00:10:18]:
So they have to be credentialed through the Wisconsin registry.

James Kademan [00:10:21]:
Okay.

Heather Reekie [00:10:21]:
Which is for early childhood educators. They get training and of course work through NAEs. They could have gone to university, to college, whatever, to get early childhood education and training. And then they also have to. All of our teachers for sure, have health and safety coursework and trainings, including CPR certified. They have a safe sleep coursework for especially they have taken a traumatic head injury course. They have all of those under their belts so that we’re always knowing that if there’s an issue. All of our teachers are trained to do CPR per se, including for infants, because we do have some young babies here.

James Kademan [00:11:11]:
Yeah. Six weeks is pretty low.

Heather Reekie [00:11:12]:
Yeah. So. And then they can go on to get more education. Maybe some of Them came with an early childhood education background, in which case they are already lead teachers. And so the requirements to have at least one lead and one assistant in each classroom. But several of our classrooms have two lead teachers because the teachers have taken upon themselves to go on to achieve more education and training.

James Kademan [00:11:40]:
Is we need an acronym for some?

Heather Reekie [00:11:42]:
No, the head teacher. They’re responsible for the planning of the curriculum and telling the. You know, working with the assistant teacher to provide the.

James Kademan [00:11:54]:
The care and educational Spanish. All right.

Heather Reekie [00:11:59]:
Our teachers are all required to be at least 70% fluent in Spanish. That’s a franchise requirement. All of our teachers that we’ve hired so far are first language Spanish speakers. So there is no problem there. We know that they’re immersing the kids in high quality models of Spanish language all day, every day. And so that’s the expectation.

James Kademan [00:12:23]:
This is a curiosity question I mentioned. I didn’t realize how many countries actually speak Spanish, but there’s a lot, right?

Heather Reekie [00:12:30]:
I mean, as you know, 21, probably more.

James Kademan [00:12:33]:
Okay. So. In a sweet ocean. So I imagine the English operating in Spain may be a little bit different than Spanish in Argentina or Mexico or something like that. Is it much?

Heather Reekie [00:12:47]:
It can be a little bit. It’s sort of like a difference between English in the north and south of the United States. Right, right.

James Kademan [00:12:53]:
Like England. Like it understands. You have to understand 70% of what they say.

Heather Reekie [00:12:59]:
Yeah. It is important that they have correct pronunciation. So I will sometimes, you know, walk into a classroom and hear the teacher explaining something in English, which is fine. Especially when kids first start. They might need a little bit of coaching and both languages. And they’re also picking up from the other students who may have entered casa before them that. And they just pick up on it so quickly. Their synapses just fire.

Heather Reekie [00:13:24]:
It’s so. Their brains are so spongy. They can learn it so fast.

James Kademan [00:13:27]:
Yeah, I’m jealous.

Heather Reekie [00:13:28]:
But I also encour. I. I say to the teachers, you know this. I want you to speak the language that you’re most comfortable with, because that is how we grow bilingual brains in children. We provide them with a really high quality model of correct pronunciation. Like you were saying, correct sentence structure, correct vocabulary use and all of. All of that to enrich what they’re hearing. So that’s just.

Heather Reekie [00:13:54]:
It’s. It’s a. And they’re putting forth their. Their culture too, their cultural identity, which is part of the. The early learning that we expect to go on here as well.

James Kademan [00:14:06]:
Nice.

Heather Reekie [00:14:06]:
It’s intercultural early learning.

James Kademan [00:14:08]:
Has it been tough to Find teachers.

Heather Reekie [00:14:11]:
Not as hard as I expected it to be.

James Kademan [00:14:14]:
I’m gonna sound like. Good. All right.

Heather Reekie [00:14:17]:
I. Yes. So people have referred friends. They’re, you know, it’s word of mouth is how we get children to enroll as well as teachers.

James Kademan [00:14:27]:
Nice.

Heather Reekie [00:14:28]:
So that’s been very nice. Yeah.

James Kademan [00:14:31]:
Tell me about the marketing side. A build or not put up the building, you remodel the building and all that jazz, you got the franchise, you got the teachers. How do you get the word out to get the actual students in here?

Heather Reekie [00:14:44]:
The franchise does a lot of the online presence with Google and things related to that online. I’m like the last person to be in tune with all the lingo and all the social media things and things like that. But I’m responsible mostly for the ground marketing. So I register for different things through chambers of commerce or different events going on around town and. And try to just be present with people who have young kids or are likely to have young kids. Farmers markets, different events like that. And just talk about how great Casa is. Yeah.

James Kademan [00:15:25]:
Imagine it’s an awareness issue, Right. Because there’s. You have daycares that are whatever buildings, and you got people that have daycares just in their house and whatever in between. So to know that you exist is probably the hardest part.

Heather Reekie [00:15:39]:
Right? Yes. Because we’re new and the word of mouth has not spread exponentially.

James Kademan [00:15:45]:
Well, you’re only a couple years in, so.

Heather Reekie [00:15:46]:
Yeah, it’s early. Yeah.

James Kademan [00:15:48]:
Tell me, when you. Or when did you first decide that you’re going to open up a daycare?

Heather Reekie [00:15:55]:
2020. Halfway through 2021, maybe. I started thinking about it.

James Kademan [00:16:01]:
And what were you doing before?

Heather Reekie [00:16:03]:
I was a speech and language pathologist in two different public school districts.

James Kademan [00:16:07]:
Okay, so you’re in the school Ish area education. Okay.

Heather Reekie [00:16:11]:
Yep, for sure.

James Kademan [00:16:12]:
And you’re like, I want to do something harder.

Heather Reekie [00:16:17]:
Yeah, pretty much.

James Kademan [00:16:18]:
Or.

Heather Reekie [00:16:20]:
Yes. I. I knew about the franchise since its inception 20 some years ago when the franchisor started in her home and then decided to branch out to owning centers and then started franchising 6ish years ago because she is my sister. So I know about the franchise forever. And I already knew that. I agreed with and jived with all of the core values. My favorite one being healthy and holistic impact that relates to the organic food and just using safe supplies that are not all consumable. And so, for example, we use cloth diapers with the infants and toddlers while they’re in our care so that we’re not sending as many disposables to the landfill.

Heather Reekie [00:17:17]:
Trying to just be earth friendly and conscious as much as we can here as a large group childcare center can be quite wasteful. So we’re trying to cut down on that and be friendlier to our environment because that helps everyone who lives here there. So we start with the organic food and then what isn’t eaten or kitchen scraps are composted. So we have a local compost company come and pick up the compost once a week. And yeah, we just try to try to be as. As healthy and holistic as.

James Kademan [00:17:47]:
All right, so did you reach out to your sister or did your sister reach out to you to start this?

Heather Reekie [00:17:55]:
I don’t remember.

James Kademan [00:17:56]:
All right, she’s like, come on, Heather.

Heather Reekie [00:18:01]:
I mean, so she lives in Minnesota. She lived there since she went to college there. And. And I always stayed in Madison. Well, I went to college at UW Eau Claire for four years, but then I came back to Madison for grad school. And so I think it was a combination of. I was showing interest and she wanted a franchise to open in her place of birth, I think. So it was sort of a combination of all the pieces coming together and making a go of it.

James Kademan [00:18:34]:
How many franchises are out there now?

Heather Reekie [00:18:38]:
10.

James Kademan [00:18:39]:
Okay. I mean, that’s a fair number. And are they all midwives?

Heather Reekie [00:18:42]:
So there are a few corporate owned. They’re all in Minnesota and Wisconsin. So altogether I think there’s about 10. So with several franchisees and three corporate owned centers in Minnesota. And then there’s one other franchisee in Wisconsin outside of Milwaukee.

James Kademan [00:18:59]:
Gotcha. All right, and do you. How does she sell the franchises? Is it by zip code or you get 20 miles plus or minus or.

Heather Reekie [00:19:08]:
Something like that, or I think it’s five.

James Kademan [00:19:10]:
Five. Okay. All right, that’s super cool.

Heather Reekie [00:19:13]:
Yeah, it’s an algorithm. And fair, you know.

James Kademan [00:19:16]:
And all the other franchises, are they this big?

Heather Reekie [00:19:21]:
Yes, some of. Well, some of them are bigger. One of them, I think is bigger. Most of them have seven or eight classrooms. Not. Not 11, but.

James Kademan [00:19:32]:
All right. No, I gotta say, I don’t go to many daycares. I don’t know if it’s obvious or not, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen daycare this big.

Heather Reekie [00:19:40]:
Really?

James Kademan [00:19:41]:
No. I mean, yeah, I know at home daycares and then other daycares that you just pass and you’re like, oh, that’s a building, and you move on with your life. But this, I mean, and I was like, oh, it’s still going.

Heather Reekie [00:19:53]:
Yeah, yeah, we have a big long hallway Separating the two sides, classrooms.

James Kademan [00:20:00]:
So you mentioned the food.

Heather Reekie [00:20:02]:
Small school.

James Kademan [00:20:03]:
Yeah, right. Yeah, absolutely. You mentioned the food. I remember passing the kitchen. How big of a deal was it to put in a kitchen?

Heather Reekie [00:20:11]:
It had to. It’s a commercial kitchen required by the franchise also in the build out and it has like a fire suppression system and all the things.

James Kademan [00:20:22]:
I was hood and all that.

Heather Reekie [00:20:24]:
I. Yes, the hood vent and all the required things for again, the health and safety of the people who are here. And I really don’t enjoy cooking myself. And so I was invested in making this kitchen somewhere where the cooks and the chefs would want to come and prepare the. The awesome food for the kids and the staff. So it’s one of the largest kitchens in a casa center. And it is kind of state of the art supplies and, and, and appliances. And we even have an automatic dishwasher.

James Kademan [00:21:02]:
Nice. Is that rare?

Heather Reekie [00:21:03]:
I don’t wanted to. Yes, I think we’re the only. But you know, we can of course use the three sink method when we need to. Right. So yeah, the kitchen is quite awesome. As are our chefs.

James Kademan [00:21:14]:
All right, tell me about your chefs.

Heather Reekie [00:21:16]:
They prepare two meals and a snack every day for the kids and the staff. And I get to eat the lunch. We’re supposed to like sample it before the children eat it. And it’s always really delicious. So the, the recipes are put forth by the franchise and they have include all these whole food ingredients and they’re just really. It’s yummy food. So I really appreciate that our chefs are able to produce all of these great meals for the students and staff.

James Kademan [00:21:49]:
So it’s not just chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese?

Heather Reekie [00:21:52]:
Absolutely not. Everything is like prepared in house fresh.

James Kademan [00:21:56]:
All right. Very cool. I always pick up my kids. I shouldn’t say no. His taste buds have expanded. But a few years ago I used to always pick on them because I, I said you always like stuff that tastes like the color beige. Just anything brown and whatever.

Heather Reekie [00:22:14]:
Bread, basically.

James Kademan [00:22:15]:
Yeah, yeah. Like you think mayonnaise is spicy. What’s going on here? So kudos to the chefs for making something or.

Heather Reekie [00:22:22]:
Yeah, food expanding these kids pallets. There’s not a lot left over in those compost buckets.

James Kademan [00:22:28]:
So that is super cool.

Heather Reekie [00:22:30]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:22:30]:
And you’re making food or you. The cooks are making food for a wide variety of ages because difference between a six week old and what they can eat versus a four year old.

Heather Reekie [00:22:41]:
Exactly. Yeah. We have two different menus, an infant menu and a toddler and preschool menu.

James Kademan [00:22:44]:
Okay.

Heather Reekie [00:22:45]:
For that reason. So and then the parents also, of course, let us know when they think their child is ready to start solid food around the middle of the first year of life. And we have a checklist of what their wanting us to offer the baby. And it’s just a. It’s a conversation with the teachers and the staff and the families to figure out how that all works and. But they know that they’re getting really high quality nutritious food when they do start eating solids here.

James Kademan [00:23:13]:
That’s awesome. Has it been tough to source the food?

Heather Reekie [00:23:17]:
Some of it.

James Kademan [00:23:18]:
Okay. But sometimes when you get an organic stuff, there’s certain times of year that this is available that’s not available.

Heather Reekie [00:23:25]:
Yeah, we just pay a little more to get what you need.

James Kademan [00:23:29]:
Money sells a lot of problems, that’s for sure.

Heather Reekie [00:23:31]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:23:33]:
Tell me the franchise itself, it sounds like they have a lot of stuff that’s been organized systems. And it’s interesting because I’ve talked to a lot of franchisees, not a ton of franchisors, a lot of franchisees. And I would dare say that a great majority of them are not pleased with franchisor a lot of times because they don’t have. They feel like they don’t have the backing of a franchisor or they’re lacking systems or they’re lacking something where typically you’re paying a percentage to the franchisor and it’s franchisee. You’re like, what do I get for that? And the franchisor will say something like, you get our backing and you get our troubleshooting and you get our marketing and our name. You’re like, well, you never answer your phone, your marketing. No one knows we exist. The name means nothing.

James Kademan [00:24:22]:
So it sounds like recipes and stuff like that. I wasn’t expecting that from franchise. That’s incredible.

Heather Reekie [00:24:28]:
It is incredible. And they keep adding to it. They keep. So we feature a different country of the month each month. What? And yep. Different Hispanic country each month. And so they’re adding. Yeah, yeah, you are welcome to come eat with us at lunchtime any day.

Heather Reekie [00:24:46]:
And so they’re trying to infuse more recipes from the featured country of the month that they think the children will enjoy and want to try. And you’re right, it is expanding their palates. I mean, they’re going to be not picky eaters by the time they get to elementary school, you know.

James Kademan [00:25:01]:
That’s incredible.

Heather Reekie [00:25:02]:
So it’s pretty awesome. Yeah.

James Kademan [00:25:04]:
I’ve been wanting to try this new Indian restaurant for the past probably year and a half, but I’m like if I go there and my kid just gets a plate of food that he.

Heather Reekie [00:25:13]:
Doesn’T eat, then you get to have the leftovers.

James Kademan [00:25:15]:
That’s true. That’s true. You got a grouchy kid. Yeah. So but maybe right with that plan.

Heather Reekie [00:25:21]:
Yeah. But there, I mean, this is a young franchise, only about six years old. So they are boots on the ground, interfacing with us very regularly.

James Kademan [00:25:31]:
So that’s cool.

Heather Reekie [00:25:32]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:25:33]:
How, I mean, do you know much about how your sister decided to start a franchise? I know Thanksgiving, she was like, I.

Heather Reekie [00:25:41]:
Got this idea, wanted to have something that would last beyond her and have something to better our communities and our societies. Because the kids coming out of a school like this are going to be more well rounded learners and go on to do great things. I mean, I think that’s the bottom line is just we want to make. Grow these bilingual intercultural learners.

James Kademan [00:26:12]:
Yeah. That’s incredible right there. Right. Because there’s no such thing as too smart.

Heather Reekie [00:26:16]:
Oh no. And never heard of that.

James Kademan [00:26:19]:
Despite, despite meeting some people are just like, did you feel like that was a fear? It’s interesting because even when I’m hiring people and you talk with them and you learn about their background, you’re like, you were kind of coddled, not in a helicopter parent kind of way, but just like you didn’t get to see the world, whether that’s by travel or by reading or like you kind of did the bare minimum to get by and no one challenged you or if they did, you were challenged along with 30 other people and just you passed. So no kind of thing. So it’s, it’s great to hear that you’re working on building a, a generation of people that are smart, well rounded.

Heather Reekie [00:27:03]:
Yeah, yeah. I think that is the ultimate goal.

James Kademan [00:27:06]:
And then, yeah, they can share that knowledge with other people or help lead the world, whatever, in whatever way.

Heather Reekie [00:27:13]:
Yeah. Hopefully we have some people that become president.

James Kademan [00:27:16]:
That’s cool. I love it. I love it.

Heather Reekie [00:27:18]:
For example.

James Kademan [00:27:19]:
Yeah. Right. Tell me, how has it been Interacting with the parents is interesting. Selfishly, on the way here, I was listening to one of the earlier podcasts I did with someone that’s dealing in the veterinary world and it was interesting talking to her about, would you call it parents, pet owners. So you got the pet, the dog or whatever that’s sick and then you got the, the pet owner. And sometimes the pet dog can’t say, this is my problem. Right. The parent has to say what they think is the problem.

James Kademan [00:27:52]:
The veterinarian has to interpret that or front Desk has to interpret that, veterinarian works on them and all that jazz. But I imagine sometimes those pet owners get frustrated. I don’t imagine. I know that happens. So I imagine parents with kids, like, that’s probably even worse than dog parents. Has it been challenging to work with parents or has that been pretty much a non issue?

Heather Reekie [00:28:15]:
I have two awesome directors leading this center who are interfacing with the parents when there are challenges.

James Kademan [00:28:24]:
All right.

Heather Reekie [00:28:25]:
Or issues that they bring up. And we. It’s a relationship business. Right. You have to have. And it’s a communication business. I mean, we’re teaching kids to communicate in multiple languages. So communication is first and foremost of utmost importance.

Heather Reekie [00:28:41]:
And so we just, we either set up a meeting, we email back and forth, we talk with them on the phone, we address their issue, we talk with them. Like earlier today, there was a meeting with a family and the teacher had a sub to attend the meeting so that everyone could get on the same page. And the meeting, I was told, went very well because we’re showing that we’re invested in the success of their child.

James Kademan [00:29:05]:
At this school, everybody’s after the same goal, right?

Heather Reekie [00:29:09]:
So I think if you just, if you just let the parents know, we have your child’s best interest in mind and we love your child, like maybe almost as much as you do, but we genuinely love your child. You know, I think that’s getting that point across by how you communicate with the families. I’m starting to tear up because they, they feel it, they know it. Sure. You know, because these teachers genuinely care about these kids as if they were their own and they know them so, so well that they can predict their needs throughout the day.

James Kademan [00:29:44]:
And yeah, it’s interesting. When we were daycare shopping, I realized from a mathematical point of view, I’m going to see my son probably four hours a day and we’re shopping for a daycare that’s going to see that kid seven to eight hours a day, not counting weekends. That means that that daycare has more experience with my son than I do. Which is kind of sad when you think about it. But that’s life. So it’s interesting because then you’re figuring out from a price point of view, how do you price that? Like, that’s priceless.

Heather Reekie [00:30:17]:
On the one hand it is correct.

James Kademan [00:30:19]:
So on the other hand, you’re like, well, this is what’s practical. So that’s a, there’s a Venn diagram there somewhere between priceless, affordable kind of thing. But it was interesting to realize that, that whoever, whatever Daycare we’re sending our kid to that. Those people, that teacher, whoever it was, is gonna have more experience with the kid than we will from a time point of view. Which means you’re probably not wrong. They may love the kid more because they spend twice as much time.

Heather Reekie [00:30:51]:
Right.

James Kademan [00:30:52]:
Or maybe they look like that because they spend twice as much time with them. Who knows? Whatever.

Heather Reekie [00:30:56]:
Yeah, that’s one way to look at it.

James Kademan [00:30:57]:
But it was surreal to just be like, oh my gosh, that is crazy if you don’t count sleeping time, which I guess maybe I should. So my son didn’t sleep very well. Spent a lot of time with him.

Heather Reekie [00:31:08]:
For you, it counted. Yes, yes.

James Kademan [00:31:10]:
You’re like spending time with them. So it’s interesting, I guess, the way our society is set up where the people providing the education, daycare, and all that kind of stuff are spending more time with the kid, arguably than a lot of the parents are.

Heather Reekie [00:31:26]:
That could be. Yeah. We’re open 50 hours a week.

James Kademan [00:31:29]:
Okay.

Heather Reekie [00:31:29]:
Parents can attend any time within those 50 hours.

James Kademan [00:31:32]:
All right, very cool. Let’s shift gears to the building itself. This building was a translation building, you said?

Heather Reekie [00:31:40]:
Yeah, there were like soundproof booths in here and several smaller offices and big conference rooms.

James Kademan [00:31:46]:
And it was a poor person that had to read a different manual in a different language, I don’t know.

Heather Reekie [00:31:52]:
But they, they ran a good business for as I can tell.

James Kademan [00:31:55]:
That’s cool.

Heather Reekie [00:31:56]:
Pretty cool.

James Kademan [00:31:56]:
How did you figure out the layout of the building? The kitchen goes here and classrooms are up top and all that.

Heather Reekie [00:32:02]:
I hired an architect.

James Kademan [00:32:04]:
Oh, nice.

Heather Reekie [00:32:04]:
Who actually was the architect who created the CASA construction manual for the franchise. So other other franchisees had used this architect. All right, the other one in Wisconsin. And so this. And this architect happens to be from Wisconsin and so knows all of the coding and regulation rules and things for. For building code and whatnot. And so I just thought it was a no brainer to hire this architect.

James Kademan [00:32:29]:
Yeah.

Heather Reekie [00:32:29]:
To design the Casa Madison.

James Kademan [00:32:31]:
All right, well, that’s super cool. There’s a cons. Would you call it a construction manual.

Heather Reekie [00:32:37]:
That the franchise provides so that you are following all of their plans and building it to the CASA standard?

James Kademan [00:32:44]:
Okay. How does the franchise come up with that stuff?

Heather Reekie [00:32:47]:
Well, they had several of their own centers for 20, 20 years or so, so. Or maybe not that long for the centers, but they have figured out through years of, of maybe some trial and error, but knowing what, what works. And also the regulations in each state for square footage per child and things like that are dictated so you can only have the room be so small if you want this many children to be enrolled in it. Got it.

James Kademan [00:33:19]:
Okay. I’m not sticking them in V cages or anything.

Heather Reekie [00:33:21]:
Right, right.

James Kademan [00:33:22]:
What are some things that you wish that parents of kids would know before they shop for a daycare?

Heather Reekie [00:33:31]:
About CASA in particular, or I’m.

James Kademan [00:33:33]:
Let’s start with universally and then we can focus on casa, I guess that.

Heather Reekie [00:33:39]:
Overarching concept that we were kind of alluding to before that like we are helping raise intercultural early learners. And your child, if they start as an infant, could be here for five years and they could graduate and go to five year old kindergarten knowing, just having exponentially more synapses firing in their brains. And so I think just knowing that your child could spend these quality formative years of their early childhood being educated with high quality instructors who love them and then also be eating this wonderful food and growing their empathetic hearts too. So the franchise says we’re growing healthy minds, bodies and hearts. Right. So just knowing that you can like the. Another core value is extended family. This is your extended family.

Heather Reekie [00:34:51]:
So it’s not just somewhere for my kid to go while I go to work and be able to pay the bills. It’s also part of your family.

James Kademan [00:34:59]:
So when you say your. It’s not exclusively to the kid, it’s the family of that kid. This is their. Okay.

Heather Reekie [00:35:05]:
And their extension family. And the teachers, extended families and the teachers interfacing with the extended family members of the students. And yeah, it’s one big happy family.

James Kademan [00:35:17]:
Yeah, that’s cool. That’s very cool. You mentioned some of the core values. Did we miss any?

Heather Reekie [00:35:22]:
There are seven. So yeah, living wholeheartedly is one. Bilingualism, of course, life changing innovation. So that, that relates to the franchise. Developing their own app for. For. There are several apps out there in existence that people can use to keep track of what the student’s day involves and inform the parents. But the CASA app is special to the Casa brand and it’s real time updates on what your child is doing throughout the day, including photos.

Heather Reekie [00:35:54]:
So that’s innovation. Yep.

James Kademan [00:35:57]:
Holy cow.

Heather Reekie [00:35:58]:
Yep. And so you know, like it notates when the child falls asleep for rest time or what they, you know, how much of the lunch they ate and you know, when they used the bathroom or had a diaper change and that kind of thing.

James Kademan [00:36:13]:
Holy cow. So that’s so cute.

Heather Reekie [00:36:18]:
It’s informative and just like fun to interact with as well.

James Kademan [00:36:23]:
All right, that sounds like a lot for the teachers to notate.

Heather Reekie [00:36:27]:
They have to do it one way or another.

James Kademan [00:36:28]:
Okay.

Heather Reekie [00:36:29]:
So. Because that is important to. To let the families know what their child is learning. And. And, you know, if they. If they had. If they didn’t sleep, for example, the whole day for one reason or another. It’s just important to keep in touch with the families about, sure.

Heather Reekie [00:36:44]:
All of that health and safety. But it also includes the educational piece, too.

James Kademan [00:36:48]:
Interesting.

Heather Reekie [00:36:49]:
So they. Either they’d have to write it down or we’d have to use a different app or something.

James Kademan [00:36:54]:
Okay.

Heather Reekie [00:36:55]:
To inform the parents. Anyway, so we’re using PASA app. That’s cool.

James Kademan [00:37:00]:
That’s cool. What else do we have in there?

Heather Reekie [00:37:02]:
Perpetual growth. So that’s more of like, you know, I’m doing perpetual growth as I, you know, grow this center’s capacity and things like that or enrollments. And the franchise is trying to get this into multiple markets outside of Wisconsin and Minnesota as well. So they’re just always trying to bring the. The brand and the concepts of. Of what we represent to the wider community.

James Kademan [00:37:31]:
Yeah.

Heather Reekie [00:37:32]:
And pioneering interculturality. That is a very big core value of. You know, even though the teachers talk about the. The featured country of the month each month, they’re infusing their own cultural identity. Regardless of what country they spent time in or grew up in or lived in for a period of time. They’re always like, we expect them to infuse their own cultural identity in everything they do, because that is part of the education here. So that’s very important.

James Kademan [00:38:03]:
Yeah.

Heather Reekie [00:38:04]:
Healthy and holistic impact is the one I mentioned as my favorite. And then we already talked about the extended family.

James Kademan [00:38:11]:
Nice.

Heather Reekie [00:38:12]:
Those are the seven core values.

James Kademan [00:38:14]:
I love it. I want to shift to a darker topic a little bit, if you don’t mind.

Heather Reekie [00:38:17]:
Okay.

James Kademan [00:38:18]:
Have you ever had anyone give you pushback, like, we don’t need to learn Spanish or my kid doesn’t need to learn Spanish or anything like that, or. Or learn another language or anything.

Heather Reekie [00:38:28]:
No. Most people come here be. I mean, I wouldn’t say even most. Some of them come because they know they want the Spanish immersion aspect. They know they want to enroll their child in a Spanish immersion school. Several don’t necessarily think that’s a top priority, but they do like the idea of it because they know that it will only help their child and not hinder their child in their growth and development and going on to elementary school and whatnot. So it’s never been a deterrent. There was only one family who enroll was on the waiting list for a childcare center that was much closer to their House and their workplaces than Casa.

Heather Reekie [00:39:25]:
And they enrolled with us for a few months until they got off the waiting list at that place.

James Kademan [00:39:30]:
Gotcha.

Heather Reekie [00:39:30]:
And they were not seeking a Spanish immersion. It’s just that we were. We had just opened, so we were doing enrollments right away, and they couldn’t get in anywhere else. And they. So that’s an example of, like, they didn’t necessarily want to leave even, or they just wanted to be closer, you.

James Kademan [00:39:47]:
Know, have that practicality.

Heather Reekie [00:39:49]:
Practical, yes. So I guess I haven’t heard of anyone, I’ll call it wanting that aspect because it’s only beneficial. There’s no downside to it.

James Kademan [00:39:59]:
Yeah. No such thing as too smart.

Heather Reekie [00:40:01]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:40:02]:
It’s interesting because I hear. I asked that question because I heard from many businesses that they get pushback. And these are businesses that I’m like, wait, what? Why do people even care? Like, what is the. What is the concern? If you don’t like it, don’t be a client.

Heather Reekie [00:40:17]:
So, like, their niche. They got pushback about their niche.

James Kademan [00:40:22]:
Yeah, but, I mean, that’s. I don’t know, different strokes for different folks. And some people just want to be meaner, argumentative, I guess, just they didn’t get to go to a good daycare, I guess, or whatever. Maybe they dropped as a kid. Who knows?

Heather Reekie [00:40:37]:
Oh, boy.

James Kademan [00:40:38]:
Whatever. Where do you see this going in, let’s say, five, 10 years?

Heather Reekie [00:40:45]:
My particular business.

James Kademan [00:40:46]:
Yeah.

Heather Reekie [00:40:47]:
Well, I hope to be fully enrolled. We are still a little under capacity right now, so in five years, I definitely hope to be maintaining the full enrollment 12 months out of the year.

James Kademan [00:40:57]:
Waiting list to be a thing. Yeah, I would. I mean, I’m not much of a future teller or anything like that, but. Yeah, I don’t know. I think even a daycare, even if you’re a crappy daycare, I think the weightless. Oh, my gosh.

Heather Reekie [00:41:11]:
Yeah. So that’s. That’s a goal, and I foresee that happening. And. And just to continue our. This concept of one big happy family where people are just loving coming to work and. And being. And not even thinking of it as work, but more as just, you know, how they spend their days.

James Kademan [00:41:30]:
Yeah. Are you open during the summer?

Heather Reekie [00:41:32]:
We are. We’re open 12 months a year.

James Kademan [00:41:34]:
Okay.

Heather Reekie [00:41:35]:
And that. So I was mentioning before that some. Some of the kids who are. Whose families maybe are. Are teachers or they don’t need as much childcare in the summer. We’re able to have some older kids attend, and they.

James Kademan [00:41:52]:
Gotcha.

Heather Reekie [00:41:53]:
So that’s something that I don’t Know if all the centers do, because a lot of the CASA franchisees and corporate owned centers are already at capacity and they’re full. So that’s just something that we’re doing while we can.

James Kademan [00:42:09]:
Right on. I saw outside you have some play equipment and some space for the kids to play with. Tell me about that a little bit.

Heather Reekie [00:42:15]:
Yeah. So the franchise requires, you know, two separate playgrounds, one for toddlers or those under two years old, and one for preschoolers where the equipment is bigger and there’s more space to run around because there are more. More of them, more older students together. And we have a turf that is fall zone rated for the high falling from the highest point on the playground. And that’s just nice for the. The kids to be able to run around on and play on and even for the infants to climb on the climb. The foam climbers that we can take outside and things. So.

Heather Reekie [00:42:52]:
And they. The infants go outside at least once a day and the preschoolers and toddlers go outside for 30 minutes twice a day.

James Kademan [00:43:01]:
Nice. I didn’t know there was a thing called fall zone rated.

Heather Reekie [00:43:07]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:43:08]:
Would you call it fall zone rated flooring or.

Heather Reekie [00:43:10]:
Yeah, it’s like, it’s like 8 inches of. Or 9 inches of. Of squishy thickness, you know, of the turf.

James Kademan [00:43:17]:
So that I’m just trying to picture this guy dropping a bowling ball and he’s like, that didn’t crack. We’re good?

Heather Reekie [00:43:21]:
Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. Funny.

James Kademan [00:43:24]:
Is there anything else you can tell us about the building?

Heather Reekie [00:43:27]:
About the building?

James Kademan [00:43:28]:
Yeah, maybe there’s not. I don’t know. I don’t know much about daycare buildings. So. Are there. I don’t know.

Heather Reekie [00:43:37]:
We have 11 classrooms. This is the pre K room. And we have three infant rooms, three toddler rooms, which each have a toilet bathroom in them for the toddlers who are ready to start potty learning. And then we have two preschool A classrooms which are essentially 2 to 3 year olds, two preschool B classrooms which are essentially 3 to 4 year olds. And so that makes up our 11 classrooms.

James Kademan [00:44:04]:
Nice. I want to talk. Shift gears back to when you started this thing. You, I imagine, went to your husband and you’re like, hey, husband, funny story. I’m gonna start this daycare with my sister’s franchise. What was his reaction?

Heather Reekie [00:44:21]:
Well, he became an investor, so.

James Kademan [00:44:23]:
Oh, good.

Heather Reekie [00:44:24]:
He was thinking, yeah, this sounds like a good idea. He read the development disclosure agreement and thought that it was a good idea.

James Kademan [00:44:35]:
All right, so was there any, I guess, what were your main concerns before you actually pulled the trigger? On the building and all that kind of stuff. Did you have any apprehension?

Heather Reekie [00:44:45]:
Oh, yeah.

James Kademan [00:44:46]:
Oh, yeah.

Heather Reekie [00:44:48]:
Just that I. I’ve never managed people in my life. I’ve been on some leadership teams throughout my career as a speech language pathologist, but never supervised anyone, ever. So I think that was my main trepidation in knowing, like, how am I going to find these people to staff this beautiful building once it’s renovated? So, yeah, there’s definitely. And getting the SBA loan was literally the hardest thing I’ve ever done. And I’ve given birth twice, naturally. And so then I was talking to. While I was getting the SBA loan, I was talking to a friend of mine who used to work in accounting and financial world and, like, asking her different questions about, like, oh, now they want this.

Heather Reekie [00:45:39]:
The SBA is asking for this. I don’t even know how to produce that. And she was like, yeah, it’s kind of like having a baby. It’s kind of like birthing a baby. And you just. You breathe through the contraction, and you, you know, gather up your mustard and relax. Try to do something calming before the next one, and then you do the next hard thing. So you get through the hard thing, you figure out all the 10 documents they’re asking for, and you give it to them, and then you do the next hard thing, and pretty soon you get an SBA loan.

Heather Reekie [00:46:10]:
And it was very difficult. So that alone getting the SBA loan taught me that I could do it. Like, I could succeed, because that was very difficult. And I’m not a crier, but I cried many times throughout that process because I just didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to do it. I didn’t know how to produce all of the things they were asking for. But I just. I did it.

Heather Reekie [00:46:39]:
I did the next hard thing and with help from other people. And sometimes I just had to figure it out on my own because nobody else knew either.

James Kademan [00:46:47]:
Oh, interesting. So, yeah, was there ever an sba, I don’t know, guru person that you could reach out to or. They didn’t really offer that.

Heather Reekie [00:46:56]:
Well, for sure. The person who was presenting my business plan and all of the things to the board, the SBA board definitely was a huge hand to hold throughout the whole process.

James Kademan [00:47:09]:
And was that through. Was an SBA loan through a bank?

Heather Reekie [00:47:13]:
Yes.

James Kademan [00:47:13]:
Okay. See, did the banker people help?

Heather Reekie [00:47:15]:
So that was the person.

James Kademan [00:47:17]:
Okay, so not necessarily an SBA employee.

Heather Reekie [00:47:20]:
No, no.

James Kademan [00:47:21]:
Or. Gotcha. They’re bank.

Heather Reekie [00:47:22]:
I don’t even know if there is such a thing. All right, so the banker was presenting my case for the loan to the sba.

James Kademan [00:47:31]:
Some board or something.

Heather Reekie [00:47:33]:
But that was her job to. To the.

James Kademan [00:47:36]:
Yes, gotcha.

Heather Reekie [00:47:37]:
To help me get the loan.

James Kademan [00:47:39]:
That is so interesting. From my limited point of view, I always believe that there’s a shortage of daycares. So you think that if somebody said, hey, I want to put up a daycare, they’d be like, well, you’re smart. You know what’s going on. You got all, here’s the money, here’s the may. Here’s your bucket of money. Go teach the kids. No, but they’re like, no, no.

James Kademan [00:48:01]:
We have some red tape, and some.

Heather Reekie [00:48:02]:
People might not need an SBA loan. Some people might be. Have other investors or be independently wealthy and be able to just start it without that. But I needed it.

James Kademan [00:48:11]:
I would assume that most people need a loan at least.

Heather Reekie [00:48:15]:
Maybe not an SBA loan, though.

James Kademan [00:48:17]:
Sure. But I mean, SBA exists for a reason. I would think so.

Heather Reekie [00:48:20]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:48:21]:
And did the bank suggest that you go with SBA loan?

Heather Reekie [00:48:25]:
Yeah. I mean, with the amount of money I needed to borrow, it was the.

James Kademan [00:48:28]:
Okay, yeah, buildings are the only way.

Heather Reekie [00:48:30]:
And because I. I did want to own the building, and that was part of the sba. It was a. It could be a longer year loan.

James Kademan [00:48:41]:
Gotcha. Okay. Very cool.

Heather Reekie [00:48:43]:
So it all worked out in the end.

James Kademan [00:48:45]:
It seems like it. You got a good thing going here. Yeah, so a very good thing going. And you. I’m just trying to think if you had a student that started with you on day one, at the youngest age, they’re only halfway through the. The curriculum. I suppose so.

Heather Reekie [00:49:01]:
Yep. Not even. Because they could stay five years and we’re only two years old.

James Kademan [00:49:04]:
All right, so in another few years, you get to see them, and then in a few years after that, you’ll see them graduate 8th grade. Years after that, you’ll be president or whatever.

Heather Reekie [00:49:16]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:49:17]:
They can say, I remember hanging out of cost. So that’s super cool.

Heather Reekie [00:49:23]:
Yeah. And we. We did not have a huge celebration for a second year anniversary like we did for the first year anniversary. However, many families and parents at the end of the day last. Last weekend, last Friday were just congratulating us because the franchise had posted on Instagram or whatever, and they were just like, this is. They’re just so complimentary of how they are so happy that they found us and that their child is thriving here. And it was just really, really fun to talk to those parents. That’s awesome.

James Kademan [00:49:56]:
That is awesome. Tell me really quick last question here. Tell me about Thanksgiving dinner with your sister. Thanksgiving, Christmas, whatever. When you see your sister, is it cool or do you guys always talk business?

Heather Reekie [00:50:07]:
You presume we’re getting together for Thanksgiving?

James Kademan [00:50:11]:
That’s how well it’s going, yes.

Heather Reekie [00:50:14]:
So she decided to fly my son to her house from Arizona State University for Thanksgiving. So, yes, I will be going there to get together with my whole family.

James Kademan [00:50:25]:
All right, very cool.

Heather Reekie [00:50:26]:
So we don’t really talk about casa much because we are enjoying each other’s company and we like Gotcha. We like to play cards. We like to do, like, cooking together.

James Kademan [00:50:38]:
All right.

Heather Reekie [00:50:38]:
That’s the only time I cook with other people who are like, you gotta pull your weight.

James Kademan [00:50:44]:
I think you make mashed potatoes.

Heather Reekie [00:50:46]:
I do. I make the. The sweet potato casserole, whatever it’s called.

James Kademan [00:50:50]:
Yeah, very cool.

Heather Reekie [00:50:53]:
Did that answer your question? It does, yeah.

James Kademan [00:50:56]:
Is it difficult not to talk shop when you see her?

Heather Reekie [00:50:59]:
At first it was, but now we’ve sort of. We’ve set up a meeting time outside of Gotcha. When we’re together, is there a safe.

James Kademan [00:51:06]:
Word if one of you starts talking about shop or you’re just like, I don’t know, turkey or something like that?

Heather Reekie [00:51:12]:
Maybe we could do that. But, yeah, it doesn’t. Doesn’t really come up. We’re too involved in other conversations, you know?

James Kademan [00:51:17]:
Well, that’s good. That’s where you go. Yeah. It’s challenging for me sometimes not to talk shop. I think it’s because I really enjoy it, so. And I don’t know, a lot of times you meet with people, they like it too. But if you get family involved, you’re like, this is family time, not shop talking time.

Heather Reekie [00:51:36]:
Yeah. So we’re both kind of on the same page with that.

James Kademan [00:51:39]:
All right, cool. That’s awesome. Well, Heather, thank you so much. I’m excited we get to take a tour.

Heather Reekie [00:51:45]:
Okay, good.

James Kademan [00:51:46]:
But in the meantime, we’ll throw up an ending here. This has been Authentic Business Adventures, the business program that brings you the struggle stories and triumphant successes of business owners across the land, locally underwritten by the bank of Sun Prairie. If you’re watching, listening, viewing, or whatever it is you do to check this thing out. If you could give it a big old thumbs up, subscribe and of course, share it with your entrepreneurial friends and those friends that may have some kids that are looking for a sweet, incredible daycare place. Right. We’d like to thank your wonderful listeners as well as our guests. Heather of Casa de Corazon.

Heather Reekie [00:52:21]:
Correct. Am I good enough?

James Kademan [00:52:23]:
Close enough. There. And remind me again, what that means, I want to say house of heart.

Heather Reekie [00:52:26]:
House of heart, house of love. It’s just a loving place to be.

James Kademan [00:52:31]:
All good. Appreciate that past episodes can be found morning, noon and night at the podcast link at drawincustomers.com thank you for joining us. We will see you next week. Want you to stay awesome. And if you do nothing else, enjoy your business. And Authentic Business Adventures is brought to you by Calls on Call, offering call answering and receptionist services for service businesses across the country. On the web https://callsoncall.com and of course, the Bold Business book, a book for the entrepreneur and all of us available wherever fine books are sold.

Heather Reekie [00:53:12]:
Jose, one of our, this is one of our chefs.

James Kademan [00:53:15]:
Oh, nice. Good to meet you. I’m James.

Heather Reekie [00:53:19]:
Bienvenido. And so then we start over here. I talk about the staff, their education and training, that they’re all like certified in CPR and first aid and have their all their infant credentials under their belts so that families know that we’re taking the best care, health and safety wise for their children. And then I talk a little bit about how we have several classrooms that have two lead teachers because they’ve gone on to get their credentials to be a lead teacher, which is the teacher who does the programming and the curriculum and has, you know, uses planning time to gather their materials that they need for the activities they’re going to do with the children. So several of our classrooms have two lead teachers as opposed to one lead and one assistant. So that’s kind of a bonus of coming here. So that’s the staff board. And then we have a little alcove over here where parents can keep car seats and strollers, which is important for especially if you have different drop off and pick up people.

Heather Reekie [00:54:24]:
Sure. So the safety seat’s always here. We do have an elevator. The chefs bring the food up and down on carts on the elevator because the kids eat in their classrooms. But all of the operational rooms, like the commercial kitchen are downstairs here. So then we’ll go upstairs.

James Kademan [00:54:40]:
Did you have to add the elevator? Did you have to add it?

Heather Reekie [00:54:43]:
Oh, yes. Oh my goodness. And nothing else can happen until that elevator shaft is in place. So that was the contractor was awesome. I really enjoyed their attentiveness and just walking me through the process. But they were on it. They just knew what to do. So it was awesome.

Heather Reekie [00:55:04]:
This is a private room that anyone can use. Some moms come and breastfeed on their lunch break, for example, if they have a long enough time to do that. I visit the kid. Kid. During the day, you can. Anyone can use this room when it’s not otherwise occupied. That’s my mom and me and my dad.

James Kademan [00:55:21]:
I was just gonna ask.

Heather Reekie [00:55:22]:
Vintage clothing, shadow boxes.

James Kademan [00:55:24]:
How cool is that? Was that the real clothes? That’s your mom and you and dad.

Heather Reekie [00:55:31]:
Okay. My mom is the oldest of five sisters, so that is not the dress. Okay. But she made me that dress.

James Kademan [00:55:38]:
Oh, wow.

Heather Reekie [00:55:39]:
And then those are the actual clothes. And those are the actual clothes that my dad and I have.

James Kademan [00:55:44]:
Oh, my gosh. That’s crazy. What about that parakeet thing?

Heather Reekie [00:55:49]:
Oh, I just added that because I noticed in the picture, there’s that little bird cage. But I collect stife stuffed animals from when I was a young child. They’re, like, made in Germany. Most of them are mohair. That one’s not. But I thought, add that little touch.

James Kademan [00:56:05]:
How cool is that?

Heather Reekie [00:56:06]:
Well, but those are the actual shoes that I was wearing in the picture.

James Kademan [00:56:10]:
Holy cow. So, all right.

Heather Reekie [00:56:13]:
Kind of fun.

James Kademan [00:56:13]:
Did you keep them intentionally, or are.

Heather Reekie [00:56:15]:
You just like, oh, oh, my mom kept them. Oh, she saves a lot of things.

James Kademan [00:56:19]:
All right.

Heather Reekie [00:56:20]:
And same with my dad’s stuffed animal. Like, that’s not in the picture, but that was his actual rabbit stuffed animal.

James Kademan [00:56:27]:
Holy hell.

Heather Reekie [00:56:28]:
And I think that’s the outfit that he’s wearing in the picture.

James Kademan [00:56:32]:
That’s fun. That is cool. Neat little room.

Heather Reekie [00:56:37]:
And then there’s a public restroom, another alcove where we keep our quad buggies. And then this is the information board where we talk about the menu that I mentioned. The infant menu is here. The toddler and preschool menu here. So the families all know what is coming up on the menu. Two meals and a snack every day. This is the calendar that franchise puts out every year. Of course, it says the closed days are the gray circles.

Heather Reekie [00:57:05]:
And then intercultural learning days, fun days, and celebration days are the colorful circles. So you can see throughout the year, there’s something every week nice, special, just for fun. Tomorrow we have kindness day, for example. Oh, and we’re going to talk about how to be kind and read special stories and. And just talk about that. That is kind of what we’re. What we’re here for is creating kind, intercultural learners.

James Kademan [00:57:28]:
Right on. That makes sense. Tell me, what was for lunch today?

Heather Reekie [00:57:32]:
It was spaghetti with tomato sauce and veggies, cheese, a tortilla, and apple.

James Kademan [00:57:40]:
Sounds great. All right.

Heather Reekie [00:57:41]:
Very well. Rounded meal.

James Kademan [00:57:43]:
Yeah, I love it.

Heather Reekie [00:57:45]:
So here we have three infant classrooms. So each infant classroom has up to eight students with two teachers. The capacity or the Ratio is four to one. So anytime there are five or more students there would be two teachers with them. So you can see that’s the case right now. In fact we have three teachers in this classroom right now. So the ratios are even lower. On the shelf over there you can see our creative curriculum.

Heather Reekie [00:58:09]:
That is the curriculum that the franchise requires us to use.

James Kademan [00:58:13]:
I like a sign. So you know exactly what classroom.

Heather Reekie [00:58:15]:
Yes. So one family member told me last week. He’s like, we just love it here. Like you focus on the things that are really important like the loving care and the food and the curriculum and you don’t focus on like you, you label your classrooms what they are. Like the franchise tells us what to label them. But like it’s not like you have to remember where that your kids in the Butterfly versus the Dragonfly Room. It’s infants A, infants B, infants C, toddlers A.

James Kademan [00:58:45]:
Very clear.

Heather Reekie [00:58:45]:
Yeah. So hospitals can learn something. Yeah, it was an interesting way to think about it that. Yeah, you know, you’re right. We do concentrate on the things that are like of utmost importance. So. And then across the hall are three toddler rooms which are about the same size as the infant room. Same ratios of students to teachers.

Heather Reekie [00:59:05]:
And they’re resting right now. So sorry, we’re kind of dark.

James Kademan [00:59:10]:
All good.

Heather Reekie [00:59:10]:
Sure.

James Kademan [00:59:12]:
Tell me about the music.

Heather Reekie [00:59:12]:
It’s not a typical tour time. We usually have are able to show group reunion because the teachers, even the infant teachers spend time with the kids in the morning having you know, teaching them the sign language signs and all of the intercultural components and whatever the curriculum theme is. So if you look behind you, there’s a poster explaining what the theme of the month is this month. It’s simple machines and the country of the month is Guatemala. So the teachers are, you know, planning, using the creative curriculum to plan their activities and learning things for each day.

James Kademan [00:59:50]:
How cool is that?

Heather Reekie [00:59:52]:
So this room is called Preschool A. We have two Preschool A rooms that are separated by two Jack and Jill bathrooms. And then same across the hall are three and four year old rooms called Preschool B which are also both occupied with up to 20 students. So the ratios increased quite a bit to 10 to 1 from 4 to 1 once they turn 3 and then a pre K room at the end and then we can go down the stairs again and I can talk about the kind of the operational rooms.

James Kademan [01:00:27]:
Sure. Yeah. The colors were the franchise colors.

Heather Reekie [01:00:31]:
Yep.

James Kademan [01:00:32]:
The walls and all that kind of stuff.

Heather Reekie [01:00:33]:
26 different paint colors.

James Kademan [01:00:35]:
26, yeah. Holy cow. That is more than just beige and hola.

Heather Reekie [01:00:41]:
And watch your step here. There is a matte floor height difference right there. So this is our indoor gym. Of course.

James Kademan [01:00:52]:
I work with this.

Heather Reekie [01:00:55]:
This is the playground. Yes, the fall zone rated turf.

James Kademan [01:01:01]:
Fall zone rated.

Heather Reekie [01:01:02]:
And there’s also, like, drainage under there and stuff. Sure. So. So this is the preschool side of the playground, and that’s the toddler side of the playground for kids.

James Kademan [01:01:11]:
It’s a big shade thing. That is.

Heather Reekie [01:01:13]:
Yeah. Yes, yes. You got to have the shade, especially in the summer. Yeah, that’s my favorite thing. The Volta spinner. It’s ADA accessible and all that good stuff. It’s like a merry go round.

James Kademan [01:01:25]:
Oh, funny. How cool is that?

Heather Reekie [01:01:28]:
Yeah. So kids like playing out here, and they can bring other things from the gym inside, like a parachute or stepping stones or. Okay, a little obstacle course. Yeah, things like that. So every minute of the day is learning opportunity.

James Kademan [01:01:44]:
That’s awesome. That’s awesome.

Heather Reekie [01:01:47]:
And this is our indoor gym. So when they can’t go outside because of temperature, licensing has certain requirements for certain age children to allow them to go outside. And so we do have this nice indoor gym for when we can go outside.

James Kademan [01:02:03]:
I love it. Oh, and the safety lot there. Yeah, those safety doorknobs.

Heather Reekie [01:02:08]:
Yeah. And then this is our laundry room where we wash all of the cloth diapers. Cloth diaper wipes. I also am a seamstress on the side, so I like to sew things. So I made cloth hand towels to use at the sinks. That’s not necessarily a franchise requirement, but it’s another way to be healthy and holistic and reduce our waste. So here’s where we wash all of the cloth things.

James Kademan [01:02:35]:
Nice.

Heather Reekie [01:02:37]:
And then across the hall is empty space, but it’s been cleaned out. And it’s our storm shelter. So we do have somewhere to go that’s mostly underground. Goes all the way back to the corner of the building. No windows, so we would be safe if we had to go there. Yeah. Okay, here’s the flags representing all of the Hispanic countries that we feature. And also just like federal holidays and different country flags from people that we talk about, historical figures and things that we talk about and teach the kids so the kids can name all of the flags.

Heather Reekie [01:03:13]:
It’s pretty awesome. And this is our commercial kitchen, where.

James Kademan [01:03:18]:
Yeah, look at this thing.

Heather Reekie [01:03:19]:
Pino and Jose make all the good organic food. This is Jose and Pino and Elena. These are our two chefs and one of our directors.

James Kademan [01:03:26]:
Good to meet you.

Heather Reekie [01:03:27]:
This label.

James Kademan [01:03:28]:
No, not mine.

Heather Reekie [01:03:31]:
And then our shelf stable food in the pantry, of course. And just in the morning you can smell lunch. And I like giving tours in the morning. Smell the lunch.

James Kademan [01:03:45]:
Yeah. This. This build off had to take a lot.

Heather Reekie [01:03:47]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [01:03:48]:
Oh, my gosh.

Heather Reekie [01:03:49]:
Not a simple task.

James Kademan [01:03:50]:
No.

Heather Reekie [01:03:51]:
It’s definitely one of their bigger projects that year. And this is another bathroom, staff break room. So it’s nice that they have a space to go if they want to. They can also go off campus. Of course. Right. And then this is another unfinished space, but we repurposed it. We cleared it out, cleaned it out and repurposed it as the staff planning room and storage of materials.

James Kademan [01:04:15]:
Oh, nice.

Heather Reekie [01:04:16]:
This is the director’s office. And then this is my office.

James Kademan [01:04:21]:
All the decisions get made, right?

Heather Reekie [01:04:22]:
Pretty much. That’s the room where all the decisions get made. Yeah. The directors work together very well to, like, problem solve and issue solve and make sure that everything’s running smoothly.

James Kademan [01:04:33]:
All right. And the crew, I guess, the. The director. How many directors?

Heather Reekie [01:04:38]:
Two directors.

James Kademan [01:04:39]:
Two directors. Okay.

Heather Reekie [01:04:40]:
An opener and a closer.

James Kademan [01:04:42]:
Okay. All right.

Heather Reekie [01:04:43]:
So that at least one of them is here. Like if there’s a parent who wants translation interpretation to talk to a teacher at the beginning of the end of the day or things like that.

James Kademan [01:04:53]:
Okay. So it’s two directors and you. That’s. That’s the round table of decision making, I suppose.

Heather Reekie [01:04:59]:
All right.

James Kademan [01:05:00]:
Very cool. How often are you in communication with the franchise or is it a. Is there ever a meeting or.

Heather Reekie [01:05:07]:
Yes, we have a bi weekly meeting. Is that every other week?

James Kademan [01:05:11]:
Bi weekly, sure. Sounds good.

Heather Reekie [01:05:13]:
Meeting with the franchise support person who is assigned to us.

James Kademan [01:05:17]:
Wow.

Heather Reekie [01:05:19]:
And so we are able to ask questions or issue solve. They use the entrepreneurial operating system.

James Kademan [01:05:27]:
Yeah.

Heather Reekie [01:05:28]:
So do you know about that? I do. Where? And we use Monday.com to keep track of, like, issues that we want to talk about. And number them. 1, 2, 3. During those meetings.

James Kademan [01:05:38]:
Yeah. I read Traction.

Heather Reekie [01:05:41]:
Yes.

James Kademan [01:05:42]:
I think it’s the book.

Heather Reekie [01:05:43]:
One of them. Yeah.

James Kademan [01:05:43]:
And it’s interesting because I just read that book and then I met a guy locally that offers that as a service. He’s a. I don’t know if they call it a coach, but a business consultant.

Heather Reekie [01:05:54]:
Okay.

James Kademan [01:05:55]:
In that EOS system. And I was like, hey, I just read that book.

Heather Reekie [01:05:59]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [01:05:59]:
Not realizing it was part of that whole EOs.

Heather Reekie [01:06:01]:
Yeah. There’s, I think three, maybe four books down.

James Kademan [01:06:04]:
Is it really okay? Yeah, I think you gotta watch it back there. We gotta watch her back. I don’t know which way they’re headed.

Heather Reekie [01:06:10]:
And you were asking about fire extinguishers. We have four of them, plus the Ones in the kitchen.

James Kademan [01:06:15]:
Gotcha.

Heather Reekie [01:06:15]:
All right. Hey, safety first.

James Kademan [01:06:18]:
Yeah. Yeah. I imagine installing the sprinkler system alone would be a huge undertaking.

Heather Reekie [01:06:23]:
Oh, my gosh. Yes. And they have to come and inspect it every six months, every three months, and then they do an annual inspector. It’s just. Yeah, it’s a lot. All right.

James Kademan [01:06:32]:
And then this is H vac. Is that what all this is?

Heather Reekie [01:06:35]:
I couldn’t tell you.

James Kademan [01:06:36]:
Okay. Something.

Heather Reekie [01:06:37]:
Some plumbing, some H Vac. Yeah. All the things.

James Kademan [01:06:39]:
That is a lot. Holy cow. Well, kudos to you for surviving construction.

Heather Reekie [01:06:45]:
Yeah, well, I thought. I thought the construction process was awesome because I had already gotten the SBA loan, remember, Like, I was through that, across that bridge.

James Kademan [01:06:53]:
Yeah.

Heather Reekie [01:06:54]:
And then it was just kind of the fun, exciting, you know, renovating.

James Kademan [01:06:58]:
Were there any challenges with construction, like, oh, we found a body or anything.

Heather Reekie [01:07:02]:
Or, oh, my gosh.

James Kademan [01:07:03]:
I don’t know. Something like a building has been around for a while. You never know what you’re going to find, like, oh, there’s a crack in the foundation or something.

Heather Reekie [01:07:09]:
The biggest challenge, while the elevator having to. Just the timing of the elevator installation as well as we needed to have many more furnaces for the zone heating, and they put some of them in the attic. It would have been nicer to keep the. Some of them where they were and do the. Do the renovation, like, put the walls around them instead of taking them out and put them in the attic kind of thing. So that was probably the most unexpected, costly thing.

James Kademan [01:07:41]:
Okay.

Heather Reekie [01:07:41]:
That happened during renovation.

James Kademan [01:07:44]:
All right, so but it’s all good now?

Heather Reekie [01:07:47]:
Well, yeah. I mean, we’re all comfortable here.

James Kademan [01:07:52]:
Yeah.

Heather Reekie [01:07:53]:
So that’s.

James Kademan [01:07:53]:
That’s cool. I love it. Sweet. Well, Heather, thank you so much.

Heather Reekie [01:07:57]:
Thank you.

James Kademan [01:07:58]:
This is incredible. This is way more than I anticipated.