Woodland Early Learning Center (formerly KinderCare) at the University of Kentucky
The University of Kentucky recognizes the importance of balancing work and family. That's why UK has partnered with CCLC (Children's Creative Learning Centers), part of the Knowledge Learning Corporation family of schools, to offer child care on campus. Founded in 1992, CCLC is a national child care provider dedicated to quality employer-sponsored early childhood education. Woodland Early Learning Center offers care to over 150 children from 6 weeks to 5 years of age at a discounted rate for UK employees and students. UK employees might also be eligible for tuition discounts at local KinderCare Centers. That way you can work each day with the peace of mind knowing your child is safe and secure.
Contact WELC
Woodland Early Learning Center
575 Woodland Avenue
Lexington, KY 40508
(859) 255-3444
bsouthard@cclc.com
How to Enroll
Use Family Connection, our online account management website to enroll your child in an enriching educational program today. Visit us at www.cclc.com\familyconnection.
Welcome to Woodland Early Learning Center!
Childhood is a unique time of discovery and wonder - a time of growing curiosity and boundless imagination. It’s the time of life when children's experiences create the foundation upon which their future learning is built. At Woodland Early Learning Center, we celebrate these early years with child development programs that promote academic and social readiness.
Here’s what you can expect to find at Woodland Early Learning Center:
- Programs designed for every age in a safe, nurturing, and fun environment
- Caring, experienced instructors who offer personalized attention and support
- Environment that infuses play with rich learning experiences and builds self-confidence, social skills and academic readiness
To learn more about classroom availability and weekly and backup care tuition rates, please contact Brandy Southard, Center Director at bsouthard@cclc.com, or stop by for a personal tour.
Teacher to Child Ratio
At the Woodland Early Learning Center you will find the following teacher to child ratios:
1:4 – Infants
1:5 – Toddlers
1:8 – Twos
1:10 – Threes
1:12 – Fours
1:14 – Prekindergarten
Age Categories for Classes
Woodland Early Learning Center welcomes infants (6 weeks) to school-age children (up to 5 years of age).
Learning Programs for Each Class
Your child changes every day. That is why Woodland Early Learning Center teachers and staff provide daily updates on your child's development. Each afternoon, we will let you know about the fun learning experiences your child is enjoying. This includes your child's activities, developmental changes and, of course, milestones - big and small.
To learn more about our educational programs designed for our Infant, Toddlers, Twos, Preschool, Prekindergarten, and Kindergarten classrooms please visit the Woodland Early Learning Center website.
Woodland Early Learning Center News
CCLC Receives National Awards
CCLC has been named to the Center for Companies That Care 2012 
Honor Roll for the fourth consecutive year. Click here to read more.
Onsite Child Care Supports Work-Life Balance
Woodland Early Learning Center and Director Brandy Southard are celebrating their 2011 parent survey results. Twice a year in May and October, Woodland ELC conducts parent surveys to learn about what families appreciate about the school, and where they'd like to see them grow. This year 88% of respondents shared an overall satisfaction with Woodland ELC and 92% would refer the center to their co-workers at UK. More from the 2011 survey.
CCLC (Woodland Early Learning Center) is on Twitter
CCLC is excited to announce we've launched a page - ConnectCCLC - on the social media web site, Twitter! As an innovator in early childhood education, not only is it important to CCLC to offer current educational programs and curriculum to the children in our care, we believe it is also essential we leverage cutting-edge approaches in communicating with you, your families, and our dedicated staff.
Twitter is one of the offerings currently at the forefront of the social networking phenomenon. As a communication tool, Twitter will enable CCLC to join industry conversations and offer our point of view.
We invite you and your colleagues to become followers of CCLC on Twitter today. To find us, visit www.twitter.com. If you already have a Twitter account, search "ConnectCCLC" and click "Follow." If you're new to Twitter, you can either create an account to follow our page or visit http://twitter.com/connectcclc regularly to view our updates.
Join us at ConnectCCLC to read about company news, industry events and interesting developments within the early childhood education and employer sponsored care spaces. We'll share regular updates every week, with a goal of keeping you and your employees' families informed of the latest CCLC and early childhood education happenings.
Eco-Healthy Child Care
The Woodland Early Childhood Center has been endorsed as an Eco-Healthy Childcare Center by the Oregon Environmental Council (OEC) since October 2008. Find out more about Eco-Healthy Child Care by visiting http://www.ecohealthychildcare.org/
More about Woodland Early Learning Center
Security Measures
Woodland Early Learning Center is committed to reducing the risk of injury to children while maintaining the health, security and safety of the children in our care. Creating a safe and secure environment is a priority and is accomplished by having highly trained staff and management who are aware of the important risk factors inherent in operating a child development center as well as the methods of preventing injuries to children. The center has controlled access and our classrooms are designed for easy visual observation of activities by staff or parents. Strict rules are in place to prevent vendors, chaperones or other authorized visitors from gaining unsupervised access to the children. All classrooms’ exterior doors are secured with external locks.
We perform a background check on all teachers according to state regulations - Woodland Early Learning Center has the most rigorous reference check process in the child care industry. Several states require mandatory fingerprinting prior to employment as well. We hire teachers who meet these state requirements in educational standards and background and reference examinations.
Visiting Opportunities
At Woodland Early Learning Center, we have an open door policy and encourage you to visit your child throughout the day - as often as you'd like. After all, University of Kentucky and Woodland Early Learning Center partnered so that you can feel comfortable knowing your child is nearby while you work. We believe in keeping communication open with parents and encourage all of our parents to participate in their child’s program, so that we can work together to create an ideal learning environment. We know that parent involvement and ongoing communication are key components of a successful center.
Parental Involvement/Conferences
Our educational programs work best when teachers and parents work together. Parents know and understand their children’s interests, fears, joys and patterns. This knowledge makes parents central to their children’s learning process and a valuable resource for their children’s teachers.
Open communication between parents and teachers is essential. At Woodland Early Learning Center, we believe that open dialogue with parents during drop-off and pick-up times is the main avenue of communicating each child’s developmental strides. There are also more formal communication tools such as daily updates, newsletters and activities, curriculum postings, and parent teacher conferences. In addition, the center keeps parents up to date with parent handbooks and information displays.
Woodland Early Learning Center has a Parent Forum that meets monthly at the center to listen to guest speakers on topics that are important to parents. The Parent Forum is a volunteer group made up of Woodland Early Learning Center parents.
Illness/Accident Procedures and Information
Illness: Preventing the spread of infectious illness is an important and necessary component of quality child care. For this reason, the Woodland Early Learning Center takes a proactive role in maintaining the children's health and well-being. The most effective measures for reducing the spread of disease in the center are (1) using proper sanitary procedures (e.g., hand washing, sanitizing and disinfecting of toys), (2) consistent implementation of the exclusion policy limiting the opportunity for children to spread diseases to each other and the staff, and (3) not allowing staff who display signs of illness to care for the children.
If a child in the center has a communicable disease, the Center Director will post signs to notify parents, send home pamphlets describing the illness, contact his/her regional director, and follow all applicable state and local regulations regarding notification.
Accidents: The Woodland Early Learning Center is committed to managing and controlling risk, but children do occasionally have accidents. Knowledge Learning Corporation has developed training materials, policies and procedures that are designed to promptly and efficiently respond to such incidents. Parents are notified of any serious injury by phone and Incident/Accident Reports are filled out as written parent notification for any incident which occurs at the center. All staff members are trained in CPR and First Aid preparing them to calmly handle any emergency situation that may arise in the center.
Children with Disabilities
The Woodland Early Learning Center welcomes all children from 6 weeks through 5 years of age. Our practice is to accept children in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), its implementing regulations, and any other applicable federal, state, or local laws pertaining to the provision of services to persons with disabilities. We review each child’s situation on a case-by-case basis to determine how the child’s needs can be met within the Woodland Early Learning Center setting. Reasonable accommodations will be made to make services available to those with disabilities.
Accreditation Information
In the child care industry, only eight percent of all centers are NAEYC-accredited. Knowledge Universe has more NAEYC accredited centers than other early childhood education private providers. More than two-thirds of our employer sponsored centers have achieved accreditation. The Woodland Early Learning Center is currently in the process of seeking NAEYC accreditation.
High-quality child development centers like the University of Kentucky WELC base their programs on the accreditation standards set by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). The NAEYC standards are the highest in the nation for early childhood programs. To learn more about the NAEYC accreditation standards, please visit the NAEYC website.
(Updated 05/09/12 - E-mail Melanie Justice - melaniefjustice@uky.edu)
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