Karen Green began her private school five years ago with two children — her daughter, Addison, and another little girl.
She knew leaving the security of her job with Hillsborough County School District to launch her own preschool was a leap of faith. But she felt compelled to do it.
(B.C. Manion/Staff Photo)
“I had to put my children in daycare,” Green said. “They weren’t getting early literacy lessons. I wanted a place where the love of reading and learning to read meet.”
She wasn’t interested in using a boxed reading program, or being limited to materials approved by a large school district. Her goal isn’t to merely teach children how to read, but help them develop a love for it.
So, Green decided to take the plunge and launch her own school.
“The Reading Corner really started on my couch with a computer,” said Green, a former reading coach and first-grade public school teacher.
It was slow going at first. But as word spread, Green found out that she wasn’t the only one who wanted early literacy opportunities for her children.
By April 2010, she had 40 children coming to her in some capacity, and she leased out a 1,500-square-foot space in Seven Oaks. But The Reading Corner quickly outgrew that space, too.
Last year, Green and co-owner Jackie Petersen decided to take another giant leap of faith and added an academy for kindergarten through fifth-grade. They call that school TRC Academy.
The Reading Corner is at 1800 Collier Parkway. TRC Academy and The Reading Corner is at 19215 Livingston Ave. The total enrollment for both schools is 289, which includes 64 kindergarten through fifth-graders in TRC Academy.
“We have a lot of teachers that have been teachers before that maybe stayed home once they had babies,” Green said. “They stayed home for a couple of years and maybe didn’t want to go back to the grind of full-time.”
The school offers flexible schedules for its staff, which has resulted in many part-time teachers.
“We are all moms first,” Green said.
There’s also an effort to keep tuition affordable, she added.
“Parents know that we could easily increase tuition, but we don’t,” Green said. “We don’t have teachers that leave and we have very few families leave, so we create that culture of consistency.
“We are small and we are going to remain small. We want to ensure that we know our kids personally,” she added.
Along those lines, the teacher-student ratio is low, with a ratio 2-to-20 for kindergarten through third grade, and a ratio of 1-to-15 for grades three through five. In voluntary pre-kindergarten, the ratio is 2-to-16 at the Collier Parkway campus, and 1-to-11 at the Livingston campus.
Programs for younger children have ratios ranging from 1-to-8 to 1-to-6, depending on the age.
Delivering personalized instruction is a critical part of Green and Petersen’s philosophy. Each child, teacher and classroom is unique, Green explained.
“For our reading … we do individual reading conferences for all of the kids,” she said.
The teacher gives them a book, and from there try to figure out their area of weakness.
“We focus on what that child needs helps in, and then we do individual reading conferences twice a week,” Green said.
And it’s made a difference.
“We have found that that program has completely changed the way these kids are reading,” Green said. “They’re having more conversations about the books they’re reading. They’re understanding them better. Their fluency is better.”
In essence, they get help exactly when and where they need it.
“We’re very big into active literacy, which means you’re communicating, you’re talking, you’re thinking about what you’re reading,” Green added.
A walk through the campus on Livingston reveals welcoming teachers and young children who are engaged in lessons or activities.
Petersen, who was a teacher at Carrollwood Day School before she joined the staff, said she, too took a leap of faith when she left her previous job.
“Something was just drawing me,” Petersen said.
She began as a teacher, and has gone on to become a co-owner. Petersen has a degree in finance, so she focuses on financial issues, while Green focuses on academics.
Besides offering classes during the academic year, there are summer programs and afternoon programs, too. Someday, the school may extend into higher grades, but for now it is focusing on ensuring excellence in the existing preschool and academy, Green said.
Both schools also will remain rooted in the mission of nurturing a joy of reading in children.
“I love seeing kids getting immersed in reading,” Green said.
Published May 21, 2014
