Page 50 - INC Magazine-November 2018

UP
next/
daycaRe
the PlatfoRM p
that WIll affordable child care and early
ReMake chIld education weigh on millions of
caRe In BIG American families, especially in key
cItIeS—and urban areas, where young couples
are starting families and struggling
Beyond to juggle the demands of their
work and their offspring. Enter San
Francisco–based Wonderschool,
a platform that gives people tools
to launch their own home­based
child care programs. In exchange
for a 10 percent cut of each
enrolled child’s tuition, the startup,
which was founded in 2016 by
Chris Bennett and Arrel Gray, helps
new caregivers—whom the com­
pany calls directors—design their
teaching philosophies, get
licensed, build a website, and
market their services. “If you can
empower people to start programs
in their homes, it makes economic
sense,” mainly, says Bennett,
because of high rents in the three
markets that Wonderschool
currently serves: New York City,
Los Angeles, and San Francisco.
(Home­based child care can
also avoid certain regulations
applied to typical child care facili­
ties, like mandates to install a
sprinkler system and to provide
parking.) Bennett says, by running
their own programs, Wonderschool
caregivers earn, on average,
$78,000 a year—more than triple
the average salary of child care
classroom staff in the U.S. “We
help directors,” says Bennett,
“become small­business owners.”
—DIANA RANSOM

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