As Lightbridge Academy seeks to expand, they plan to keep tackling common issues in the industry, including staffing, through various methods.
Children’s education and daycare franchises, like just about every business sector, are being impacted by ongoing staffing shortages. As companies such as Lightbridge Academy seek to expand their footprints, how they overcome these challenges is at the forefront of decisions for both the franchisor and franchisees.
Lightbridge CEO Gigi Schweikert, who was promoted from president in 2021 after Westerly Group and Elmsley Capital bought a majority stake in the company, has been in early childhood education for more than 30 years, including serving as the director of the United Nations Early Childhood Care and Learning Centre. Lightbridge, she said, is “a perfect fit for me from a business point of view and from an early childhood education point of view. Franchising provides everybody the chance to open a business, which is very important to me.”
As 68-unit Lightbridge looks to enter new markets, Schweikert is using her experiences to find the right places and people. Understanding the needs of the community, exercising patience and building relationships are her goals for expansion.
“I really believe that in business, you really are a teacher of other people,” she said. As Lightbridge works to find the right people, it’s found success by calling attention to its benefits and paying what Schweikert called “reasonable wages” as it aims to create spaces where staff are appreciated.
For franchisees Nish Patel and Charles Johnson, successfully staffing their locations is paramount to their overall success.
Patel, who with his business partners owns 11 Lightbridge Academies in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and North Carolina, has been a franchisee since 2016. Wages start at $18 an hour for teachers at his group’s locations, though there’s plenty of room to grow.
Offering competitive wages and other incentives, franchisees for Lightbridge Academy in markets new and old are confronting the staffing shortage head on.
“We like to empower and promote from within so we invest a lot of time and money into our teachers to further their education,” said Patel.
Employees are able to take on new roles and challenges, which helps with lower turnover, and Patel noted overall that “Lightbridge Academy has been able to retain their staff well.”
Johnson opened his first location in 2021in Gallatin, Tennessee. As the first Lightbridge Academy in the state, he had a different challenge to deal with: breaking out into the new market.
“The brand wasn’t well known, but since we’ve opened, we’ve been increasing the enrollment,” he said.
Now with two locations open, he attributes the early success to the company’s support center, which provided necessary marketing assistance and resources to raise brand awareness. Staffing, however, “is probably our biggest challenge right now,” he said.
As an industry that is ratio driven, meaning there can only be a certain number of children per teacher, those employees are essential, but Johnson noted it’s important to also balance labor costs. As wages rise, tuition costs often go up to offset the increase, which can affect enrollment numbers.
Johnson, who signed a five-unit franchise agreement, said wages for the teachers at his locations are between $14 and $18 an hour. Other ways he’s retained employees include “soft compensation,” such as offering free breakfast on Monday and lunch on Friday. An incentive program was introduced, with rewards such as gift cards for positive Google reviews or perfect attendance.
As for locations, Lightbridge’s support center looks to going to where the demand is, whether that’s a standalone location or an addition to an existing space.
When it comes to finding locations to put down roots, Lightbridge is going where the parents are, and the company is flexible with its real estate requirements. Not all locations are standalone buildings; some are on the first floor of apartment buildings, while others make their home in office space or strip malls. This flexibility has been useful as buildout costs increased 41 percent for new locations.
“We’ve already been working and using flexible building models and finding our sites to serve families and their children,” said Schweikert. “That gives us a huge leg up in overcoming that challenge.”
Based in New Jersey and with locations concentrated in the Northeast, Lightbridge wants to push west, including into Texas and Ohio. The cost to open a Lightbridge Academy ranges from $621,233 to $824,150 for a leased center and $2.6- to $5 million for a purchased center.