This fall, Redmond parents will have one more option for early education.
A new 10,380 square-foot Goddard School will open at 4200 228th Ave. N.E. The school is for children from six weeks to 6 years old and will be Redmond residents Jeff and Shauna Barison’s second school. Their first Goddard school is 8,000 square feet and on Redmond Ridge at 10611 Redmond Ridge Dr. N.E.
The Barisons opened a second location because they said they liked the Goddard business model and philosophy: Building schools in residential areas so they are closer to where people live instead of where they work.
Jeff said staying local and close to home means a lot to them because it offers them more flexibility in scheduling.
The Barisons’ schools are part of Goddard Systems, Inc., a national franchise for early childhood development.
Goddard schools are required to have an onsite owner, so Shauna will be in charge of the first location while Jeff will head the new school when it opens in the next few months. Shauna’s parents, Robert and Teresa Nichols, also helped her and Jeff open the second location but they are offsite owners.
Shauna, who has previous experience as a special education kindergarten teacher, said they have play-based learning and set curriculum for each age group. While this is true, Goddard teachers also base their lessons on their students’ development.
“Our teachers actually create lesson plans for the kids,” Jeff said. “So they’re able to meet the needs of the kids.”
And the kids are the reason the Barisons do what they do. They said they enjoy meeting families and building relationships with them on a daily basis.
“It’s just a fun environment,” Shauna said.
Like the Redmond Ridge location, the new Goddard school will have nine classrooms. Teacher-student ratios are based on the age group. For infants, it’s 1-to-4; toddler classes are between 1-to-5 and 1-to-8; and for preschoolers, it’s 1-to-10. There will be two teachers per classroom.
In addition to the classrooms, the new school will also have an indoor gymnasium — something the first location does not have. The new school will also have an after-school program for elementary school students, which Jeff said makes sense since they are located across the street from Louisa May Alcott Elementary School.
Because of its location, the Barisons made sure to do a traffic impact study to see how much a new school would affect the already-congested area. The study showed the impact to be minimal, which is why they chose the location, but the Barisons said this will change with the new STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) school Lake Washington School District is planning to build on 228th Avenue Northeast as well.
Because of this, Jeff said they are working with the Alcott principal as well as district officials to figure out a schedule that would work best for everyone.
For more information about the new Goddard School, call (425) 882-1100. For more information about the Redmond Ridge location, call (425) 868-8333.
