A new daycare facility, with a new owner and team of directors, has taken over the Erin Ridge storefront where a daycare was shut down by the provincial government earlier this year.
The new daycare, Brite Beginnings, opened on Dec. 1, and is owned and operated by Jay Zhang, along with directors Lacie Garneau and Isabel McRae.
For Garneau and McRae, the opening of the St. Albert location comes at a time when the two recently passed the 30-year mark of working together at the Brite Beginnings location in south Edmonton, while Zhang is a new addition to the team after recently purchasing the Brite Beginnings company from Susan Heimannsberg.
“I looked through a lot of daycares when I was trying to purchase them and none of them had the standard that I was looking for; Brite Beginnings was the only one, and I think it was the right time and the right place,” Zhang told the Gazette.
“We have a very high quality of care,” Garneau added. “We have a very high standard of where we need our childcare expectations to come from, down to how the classrooms are organized.”
“We technically do not need to have all of our educators with first aid and everything but that is going to be a standard that we're going to have every educator have. Every educator is going to have the highest quality of care, and the most experience.”
Although Brite Beginnings St. Albert opened its doors at the beginning of the month, Zhang and Garneau said they have taken on just a dozen or so kids for the time being so the facility can continue hiring and training staff.
“We're not full right off the bat because we need to make sure our staff is trained,” said Zhang. “We want to fill the space up gradually with experienced staff.”
The facility will have a maximum capacity of 100 kids, Zhang said, and the ages will range from 1-year-olds to those in the second or third grade.
Zhang also said he and the team knew that their St. Albert location was previously home to the Erin Ridge Children's Academy, which was shut down by the provincial government in March after more than 20 regulatory citations were issued by the provincial government's Early Learning and Child Care (ELCC) inspectors between June of 2022 and February of 2023.
The citations included not having enough staff on site; failure to report an incident that may have affected the health and safety of a child; multiple incidents of unreasonable child guidance; a confirmed incident that involved physical restraint, confinement, or isolation of a child; and more.
As the Gazette reported at the time, one of the more serious citations was specifically for the facility's licence holder, Daljit Chauhan, who, despite being ordered by ELCC staff to not work alone with children after a previous incident, was seen on camera on Feb. 10 “picking up infants and moving them in a rough manner.”
“One infant was taken from their mat on the floor and placed in a crib. A blanket was put over their face by (Chauhan),” reads an ELCC inspection report from the incident the Gazette obtained.
“[Chauhan] then went to sit on the floor between two mats, an infant on each mat ... then [Chauhan] placed a blanket over the infant's face, and placed her palm on the child's head/face holding it. The other child was [lying] on the mat on their back. [Chauhan] was observed to take the infant's right arm, and place it under (Chauhan's) leg, holding the infant still and in place. This child also had their face covered by a blanket, and [Chauhan's] palm placed on the infant's face/head.”
Just three days prior, Chauhan was involved with another incident at the daycare that led one parent to call the RCMP, however no charges were laid as a result.
The incident involved a 4-year-old being told to lie face-down on the floor for an hour as punishment, but when the child went to stand up, Chauhan pinned him down with her legs.
Zhang said that prior to Brite Beginnings getting their licence to operate, one thing ELCC staff actually asked him to confirm was that the operators of the previous facility weren't involved.
When asked why the team decided to open a daycare in the same location, Zhang explained that it was partially because the building had already been layed out for such a facility, however, Brite Beginnings did make some changes to which rooms were being used for classrooms and staff space.
As well, Zhang said, another benefit was that he was able to purchase the entire building so that his daycare is a stand-alone facility, therefore eliminating concerns about other commercial businesses opening right next door.
More information about Brite Beginnings can be found on the facility's website.
