Robert E. Simon Jr. Children's Center Offering Full-Time Kindergarten
In light of the new landscape we are facing, area organizations and businesses are finding that the needs of our community members are shifting drastically. With the decisions of several local public-school systems to revert to a primarily, or entirely, virtual curriculum, a gaping need for many community families to find school alternatives for the 2020 year has come to light.
Robert E. Simon, Hr. Children’s Center, a local nonprofit child care center in Reston that has been serving the Fairfax and Loudoun County communities for over 30 years, has shifted to address this community need by offering a full-time private Kindergarten class for the 2020-2021 school year. Built to mirror the hours and structure of a typical school day, the program has normal attendance hours of 8:30 AM to 3:30 PM, with additional before and after care available. Children in the kindergarten class are provided a morning breakfast snack and a catered hot lunch by the Simon Center’s caterer Good Foods.
Safety is paramount in the Simon Center being able to comfortably offer this program to the community. Aside from the required regulations, staff at the center are taking extraordinary precautions to keep the health and safety of attending children as the utmost priority. The center is enforcing contact-less individual drop-offs and pick-ups, extensive sanitation procedures several times per day, and both indoor and outdoor activities that respect social distancing. Health checks of all children attending the center are performed several times per day, and temperatures are taken on no less than a daily basis. Children in the kindergarten program will wear masks when in common areas of the center including bathrooms, hallways, or when interacting with children in other classrooms.
Located just a few turns off of the Dulles Toll Road, the Simon Center is conveniently located along most popular commuter routes. The center’s director Leila Kaszubinski, a 20+ year veteran of the center, hopes that by offering the Kindergarten class, the center can try to meet this growing need for families all throughout the Fairfax and Loudoun County areas.
“We know the importance of social interaction for children, especially at this delicate time in their development”, Kaszubinski says, “This is a tough time for the community. Children are struggling with the effects of quarantine and social isolation, but at the same time we have a global health crisis to consider. We’ve structured our entire program around safety, health, and precautionary measures so that we can be as fit to meet this community need as we can.”
In addition to the new full-time Kindergarten classroom, the Simon Center also offers pre-school age classrooms for kindergarten and school readiness.
