Jan Macko and Andrea Macko Miller are dedicated to education.
The passion to teach young children is evident both in their voices and in every nook and cranny of the M&M Learning Factory in the Bellegrass subdivision off Mississippi 589.
The mother and daughter plan to cut the ribbon on the facility Friday and open for business March 2.
M&M, which stands for Macko and Miller, has capacity for 136 students, ranging from infants to age 4. Macko and Miller also plan to have an after-school program for kindergartners up to fifth-graders. Fees will range from $60 to $140 a week, depending on the age of the child and services offered.
Both Macko and Miller have teaching backgrounds. Macko has a master's in education and certification in early adolescence education. Macko founded Kindercare Learning Center on South 40th Avenue in Hattiesburg. Miller also has a master's degree in education and is a former teacher at W.L. Smith Elementary School in Petal.
"We wanted to do what we know and what we know is education," Macko said. "We wanted to be more than a day care. We wanted to have a child-care center where children are loved, safe and educated."
M&M evolved from what Miller was looking for in a child-care center for her 1-year-old daughter, Annaleah. Miller said in developing M&M, she thought about what she would want her own child to experience.
"I look at the center through the eyes of an owner and a director, but I also look at it as an educator and a mother," she said. "What I want to provide for my child is what I want to provide for everyone else's children as well."
The economy had virtually no impact on M&M's opening. Macko and Miller secured the financing to build the facility two years ago, and by the time the economy began its downturn, the facility was well on its way to completion.
"When the economy started getting bad, we were almost finished with our building," Miller said. "We wanted to continue forth with what we were doing."
Macko and Miller decided to build M&M in Bellegrass, a mixed-use subdivision, because it was in close proximity to U.S. 98 West and the neighborhood was appealing. Miller said M&M would use the neighborhood to teach the children under M&M's care.
M&M will use the Higher Reach curriculum, a month-to-month curriculum that starts with infants and ranges to age 14. The center will receive lesson plans every month, Macko said, which allows the curriculum to be quickly updated and incorporate current events.
One example, Macko said, might be planting a vegetable garden, which could inspire several lessons from planting to tending to eating the final product.
Early childhood learning is becoming more and more important, Miller said, and M&M is dedicated to helping children learn.
"Studies have shown that 80 percent of your brain has developed by the time you are 4 years old," Miller said. "Children need to play and to have fun, but at the same time, they need to have some learning incorporated into those experiences."
Some of the amenities that M&M will provide include a low student-to-teacher ratio and access to the Watch Me Grow system, a surveillance camera in each classroom where parents can log on with an access code and watch their child's classroom activities.
Macko and Miller don't want M&M to be an ordinary day care center. Miller said she wants parents to know that their children are safe and well-taught, and that the children are enthusiastic every day.
Full text available at Hattiesburg American.