Meet Brittie Crawford | Preschool Owner/Director

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

Hi Brittie, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
I was a new mom looking for childcare and a new job in 2008. I was looking for childcare that would allow my child the opportunity to play, develop social skills, be at one with nature and the outdoors. I couldn’t find what i was looking for locally and didn’t want to drive outside of my neighborhood for childcare. My solution was to open a childcare business out of my home, hence creating a job for myself at the same time. My philosophy for starting my business was that if I could work as hard for myself as I did for an employer I would be successful. So, I made sure to have the same work ethic that I had when working for myself as I did when I had an employer.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
World City Center is a dual-language preschool center. We offer a hands-on approach to learning that addresses the whole child while encouraging curiosity and meaning making. We are play-based and present many opportunities for cross-cultural exploration and anti-bias education. Our dual-language approach is a 90/10 Spanish immersion model where, 90% of the time, teachers speak to the children in the target language, and 10% of the time they support with English as needed, creating an immersive experience that is crucial for second language acquisition.

At World City Center we offer an enriching environment where kids are outside 50% of the day. They’re able to experience nature and sustainability through a learning vegetable garden in the middle of the city. We also believe that children, ages 2 to 5 learn best through play so our children have ample indoor and outdoor self-guided play. Children are also presented with play-based experiences that allow them to explore multidisciplinary subjects from math to art and everything in between.

Business wise, I started the business first in my home as a family daycare home and I think it was great to start that way before taking the steps to open to a preschool center. The experience of running the home daycare allowed me to learn about how to effectively deal with children, parents and teachers in a smaller environment first. Scaling from there was easier because our home daycare children were our first preschool class. The preschool opened with a waitlist because of the 5 year home operation prior to expanding to a larger space. Our parents were the catalyst to our expansion because they wanted a preschool that mirrored what we were doing at my home daycare, which included a vegetable garden, lots of outdoor play time and play-based experiences. Some of the challenges of expanding into a larger facility were making sure to have the right insurance policies in place, hiring qualified staff, staff retention and staying up to date with city, state and federal licenses, certificates and permits.

As for lessons learned along the way, there have been many. One lesson has been to make sure to have the proper insurance in place. Early on we had a few missteps with insufficient insurance that caused setbacks. My advice would be that business owners research their type of business and know what insurances are needed. There are all types of insurance for business: liability, health, workers compensation, accident, etc.

Secondly, I learned to surround myself with what I call a Dream Team of Experts. In business we can’t possibly be an expert at everything, but it is important to have those who do specialize in what you don’t. Some examples from my own Dream Team of Experts are an accountant, a bookkeeper, an HR consultant, real estate brokers, business advisors, insurance agents, architects, funding experts and a good payroll company. With that, I learned not to wait until I needed experts to line them up on my team. Like the saying goes if you stay ready, you don’t have to get ready.

What I would want the world to know about our brand is that we don’t plan to stop here. We like it when our kids arrive and go home happy, inspired and motivated. Our goal is to expand to multiple centers so that we can provide play-based, dual-immersion early education, that children make children happy, to children across LA county and nationwide.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Oh, man! I love this question. I’m not an LA native, but I love LA. This city just has so much to offer that it is hard to pick but if I had a friend visiting the area for a week, I would first take them to local West Adams jaunts because thats my hood but I also like to branch out into the city.

I would explore some of my favorites for breakfast like Highly Likely on Jefferson, Perch and Bottega Louie in DTLA. For lunch we would have to hit up local West Adams spots Los Anaya, Delicious Pizza and Johnnie’s Pastrami. For coffee, Cognoscenti in Culver City, Cafe 5 is the local spot on Jefferson and I would drive all the way to Atwater Village for Proof any day of the week. For dinners, I would take them locally to Alta and Post and Beam and I would make my reservation a month in advance for Bestia. I would also pick up food from Pasta Sisters to eat outside at home.

I love to go to museums, so I would take them to the Underground Museum locally and the Broad downtown.

I like to hike so I would take them to Griffith Park so they could catch a view of the Hollywood sign. I’d also take them to the Rancho Palos Verdes for a beautiful hike, for the views and the tide pools.

For a unique shopping experience, I’d take them to the Slauson Swap Meet or Santee Alley downtown. I’d take them the Westfield Century City Mall for a high-end shopping experience in a great outdoor environment.

To just hang and explore I would take them to the beach on Saturday and walk from Santa Monica to Venice or to Leimert Park Village on a Sunday.

Lastly, I would take them to the Hollywood Farmer’s Market on Sunday to eat and shop for fruit and vegetables and cheese, plants for the garden and everything in between

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I dedicate my shoutout to the Tiny Sprouts and World City Center community of teachers and parents, past and present, for believing in my vision to provide quality early education.

Website: www.wcc-la.com

Instagram: @worldcitycenter

Twitter: https://twitter.com/worldcitycenter

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/worldcitycenter

Image Credits
Karen Steyr-Randolph