Why This Children's Lighthouse Operating Partner Loves the Brand's Curriculum

For Danielle Luja, becoming a Children's Lighthouse franchisee grew out of her experience working with children, raising a young family, and searching for the kind of early education she wanted for her own kids.

"I've always worked with children since I was in high school," Luja said. "I've always known that is the direction I wanted to go."

After earning her master's degree, Luja built a career in behavioral mental health, working with at-risk youth before transitioning into a compliance role during the COVID-19 pandemic so she could work from home with a newborn. While the move made sense for her family, she found herself missing the direct connection she had always enjoyed with children.

At the same time, she and her husband were experiencing another challenge familiar to many young families: finding quality childcare.

"We got on a list right when we found out we were pregnant, but we could not get in anywhere," she said. "I live in Nashville, and we had to drive all the way 35 minutes away just to get childcare."

That experience planted the seed for a new opportunity.

As Luja and her husband began exploring the childcare industry, they considered opening a center of their own. Her husband, who works in construction, connected with business partner Kal Patel, who was already researching Children's Lighthouse.

The more Luja learned about the brand, the more convinced she became that it was unlike anything she had seen before.

"My daughter was at another childcare center, but we weren't sold on that," she said. "So we started looking with Kal and CJ [Patel] at Children's Lighthouse. We met everybody on the team and were so blown away.

You could tell they really cared [with] the due diligence they did on us as people. They really care who comes into their Children's Lighthouse family. It felt like the perfect franchise to join.

That fall we officially signed on, and then it was a whirlwind. They were beyond helpful every step of the way. They were supportive.

Every question we had, it felt like we had an automatic answer."

She also discovered that the support extended well beyond the corporate team.

"Going with a franchise that provides that level of support was really the biggest selling point," she said. "The level of support from the other franchise owners was also amazing. I left the conference with so many different franchisees' phone numbers. I'm on a WhatsApp group with a bunch of franchisees. It's really a family atmosphere, and that's how I felt from the beginning."

While the franchise support impressed Luja, it was Children's Lighthouse's proprietary Lighthouse Pathways® curriculum that ultimately convinced her she had found something special.

"The care that goes into the curriculum was so exciting," she said. "My children were in childcare and nothing against some of the centers they had been at, but my daughter would consistently come home with a backpack full of drawn-on papers. We weren't getting the curriculum we were getting sold."

As she explored Children's Lighthouse, she quickly realized how intentionally every aspect of learning had been designed.

"When we started looking at Children's Lighthouse and seeing the different handbooks and the different curricula, it was a whole other level," she said. "From arts and crafts to potty training, parents are busy, so having that supplement to the curriculum was so amazing. This is completely different."

That curriculum is one of Children's Lighthouse's defining advantages. Through its Lighthouse Pathways® approach, children receive age-appropriate instruction that blends academic readiness with character development, social-emotional learning, STREAM education, and hands-on discovery.

Children's Lighthouse officially opened Luja's school in May, and one of her first students was her own daughter. The impact was immediate.

"My daughter comes home and I can see she is working on handwriting, learning the alphabet," Luja said. "I see things like that that show she is truly learning. She doesn’t just come back with a backpack full of scribbled-on paper. I was so blown away by the curriculum in action. It is so different when your own child comes home with something like that."

In fact, after only a few days of attendance, Luja felt compelled to send a message to the Children's Lighthouse curriculum team expressing just how impressed she was.

Beyond the academic outcomes, Luja says the classroom environments themselves immediately captured her daughter's imagination.

"Everything in the classroom here — all the materials and the toys — are so exciting to the kids," Luja said. "Our science center, for example, with all of the magnifying glasses and seashells and bones. It's a whole different world. That goes for every age group. She was used to a center with bland tools and toys. It's amazing that she noticed it day one.”

The response from families has already reinforced what Luja experienced herself. "A lot of parents have said how impressed they are with the curriculum," Luja said. "We are putting teachers in place who can really present the curriculum the right way. This is not just a childcare center that is watching your children. Parents are seeing the difference.”

For Luja, that's exactly what she hoped to provide when she decided to become an Operating Partner. As both a franchise owner and a parent, she has seen firsthand how Children's Lighthouse delivers on its promise of providing children with a meaningful educational foundation.

"The experience has made me very happy as a parent," she said, "and as a business owner in our community."