Meet Bhagya Wijewardane | Director & Owner

We had the good fortune of connecting with Bhagya Wijewardane and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Bhagya, what are you inspired by?
The main person who inspired me, at the very outset of my journey in this life, was my great grandmother, my father’s grandmother. I was lucky enough to interact with her until I was 5 years old. My mother shared her story with me. All throughout her life, she had possessed an extremely impressive potential for creating wealth for her and her decedents. According to my parents, she had eventually ended up creating a massive real estate empire, which has been rather unusual for a woman at that era in Sri Lanka. I want to mention my parents who guided us through everything.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
We founded Keystone Montessori Academy in 2015 in the beautiful southern Californian city of Whittier. Prior to this exciting expansion, I commenced my entrepreneurial journey as an owner of a home base business. Originally, I have been studying Architecture and Design, and have been planning to become an Architect. However, in the process, I took a job as a Telecommunication Designer, which has been progressing very well with promising career prospects. This was also at a time when I was searching for a good Childcare facility for my very young daughters. My search for an acceptable early childhood program fulfilling my stringent standards eventually failed, which practically forced me to take a different turn in my career by launching a home based business catering for parents seeking a high quality early childhood program for their children. My home-based early Childhood School began with a simple but very powerful premise of offering parents (facing the same circumstances as I was at the time) the necessary assurance that it would provide their children a very caring, secure and healthy environment in which they would be able to progress in their academics with the highest standards while developing the very much needed social interactions. I simply did everything with respect to the school merely by putting myself in the shoes of every parent. That was simply the reason for the tremendous success in my home-based business that led to the next level of natural expansion of the same. In our school, Keystone Montessori academy, we follow Dr. Maria Montessori’s philosophy, wherein we strongly take into account the five critical needs of a child. All academics and other necessary childhood activities are designed and planned based on this framework. Over the years, with my close interactions with Parents and Children, I have found that a number of parents are overly concerned about the physical and academic development of their young children. However, in order to promote the development of a successful human being with a strong foundation, it is imperative to cater for the emotional needs of a child from a very early age. In Keystone Montessori, we are of the firm belief that every child has a unique inner (psychic) energy level which later develops and molds into their own character. The most important time span of a human’s journey through the life would be during the years of 0-6, where 85% of brain development as well as progression through key sensitive childhood growth milestones take place. We therefore need to pay careful attention to children during this period while treating each and every one in a very unique way as much as possible. This will enable us to understand and develop their unique abilities in supporting them to bring the maximum potential out of them. As a school, we make sure to work with all children catering to the fullest of their individual needs without discriminating anyone, one way or the other. We are obviously very proud of our graduates, students, dedicated teachers, parents, and third-party partners. We are truly happy with, where the short journey of five years brought us towards. With a humble beginning that was born out of a home-based pre-school, today, Keystone is a leading Montessori school in Whittier, CA

We’d love to hear what sets you apart from others, what you are most proud of or excited about. How did you get to where you are today professionally. Was it easy? If not, how did you overcome the challenges? What are the lessons you’ve learned along the way. What do you want the world to know about you or your brand and story?
Even though I enjoyed every step of my journey in bringing the school to where it is today, it was not certainly a walk in the park. It involved a tremendous amount of hard work to overcome numerous obstacles. When I began the school, we started it with 3 empty classes. However, our dedicated and truly devoted hard work paid for itself eventually. It is worthwhile noting that, at the time of this expansion, I was only 27 years with two daughters (a toddler and an infant) who happened to be a first-generation Sri Lankan American. As such, I did have additional huddles overcome both in my personal and professional journeys in comparison to an average entrepreneur building a similar business. Furthermore, I was embarking upon a totally different field in which pretty much everything was new to me. I soon had to progress in both “Pre-school child development” and “Entrepreneurship”. However, I was confident that my passion and love for young children and their betterment would overcome all challenges and difficulties I was facing. Such a positive determination fueled by my true love for children finally allowed me to have a handle over all activities in the business ranging from raising capital to recruiting qualified employees. I started studying again. I enrolled myself in UCLA to acquire all the knowledge and wisdom required for my new mission. Outside my formal studies related to Pre-school Child Development, I spent every minute at my disposal to make things better in my entrepreneurial journey. Right from the outset, I was very much aware of the challenges that I was facing. I knew that without a solid foundation and business strategy my love and passion for young children and early childhood education would not stand on a firm ground that would be financially sustainable. It was therefore imperative that I would make progress in both directions. With reference to the formal education from UCLA, I completed all the essential training and beyond, earning the prestigious AMS certification. In the process, I mastered all that is necessary to handle essential resources, work with referral agencies, etc. I do recall the extensive study and research that I did on “California regulation Title 22 Chapter 1” that enabled me to work with state government departments and officials very effectively building some very valuable professional relationships with them. All these numerous accomplishments eventually led to us being granted the necessary California site supervisor permits as well as the licenses for conducting a Montessori academy. With a gradual progression in my self-taught self-developed entrepreneurship, I mastered numerous business skills related to Human Resource Management, Business Finance, Business Strategy, etc. I would like to mention with a lot of gratitude the invaluable support that I received from Pastor Bill Garrison of St. Matthias church when starting the school. Building up a brand, particularly for a brand-new business Is, of course, no easy task. As it is often stated in numerous places, there are no short cuts to success if you need it to be sustainable over a long period of time. It involves a tremendous amount of hard-working, calculated risk-taking that would also take one through swings of ups and downs. My goal was to deliver an excellence service to the community since the city of Whittier was very much in need of an authentic Montessori. We focus on three key ingredients that are essential for the enrichment of childhood education, namely: Education, Nutrition, and Safety. I am proud to say that Keystone accomplishes its quality objectives with sheer hard work fueled by love, passion, and integrity.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
The main person who inspired me, at the very outset of my journey in this life, was my great grandmother, my father’s grandmother. I was lucky enough to interact with her until I was 5 years old. My mother shared her story with me. All throughout her life, she had possessed an extremely impressive potential for creating wealth for her and her decedents. According to my parents, she had eventually ended up creating a massive real estate empire, which has been rather unusual for a woman at that era in Sri Lanka. I want to mention my parents who guided us through everything.

Website: https://www.keystonemontessoripreschool.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/keystonempw/?hl=en
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bhagya-wijewardane-b4486513a/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KeystoneMontessoripreschool/
Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/keystone-montessori-academy-whittier-whittier
Youtube:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgWN8e7VnTbjK9Qzv_EbsbA/videos?view_as=subscriber