History
School History in Lafayette, CO
Take-A-Break is a privately owned company with the following history: In 1982, when I was expecting my first child my goal was to stay home and raise well-balanced children. However, I decided if I could raise one child then maybe I could help raise other children successfully. I decided to provide in-home child care. I found that I really loved doing child care and as it turned out, I realized that this is exactly where my strengths are. With six children of my own, it became very apparent that also I love being a mother. The longer I stayed in the child care field, the more apparent the need for quality child care became to me. I began to realize the large impact providers make in children's lives. I quickly earned the trust and respect of my neighbors and friends and my business began to grow rapidly. In 1984, I employed my younger sister to help me out. She stayed with me until 1987 and she has continued to help me out occasionally over the last 25 years. After my sister left, I began to realize how stressful it was to work long hours with children without any relief. I decided to gather information on what created stress for parents and home care and center care providers. This coupled with nobody to help me out when I needed a break, helped me form the concepts for Take-A-Break back-up child care services.
In 1987, I began to work on the Take-A-Break concept with a friend and became business partners. Together we worked through all the stages of developing a corporation. We opened the back-up care business in October of 1989. Our main focus at that point was to provide back-up care to in-home care providers.
In 1990, I developed the concept of combining Corporations together to meet employee needs. Over the next several years, I began providing services for the BBDCA (Boulder Business Defendant Care Association) as well as three other large consortium's. This gave us a client base of approximately 58,000. In March of 1997 we scaled back our services to provide care to corporations on a private one on one basis and have been doing that since. In 1993, I opened Take-A-Break Creative Interest Center. I did combination care for children from 21/2 to 12 years old. I ran this program like a one room school house. I maintained my daycare home license and continued to provide care for a small number of infants and toddlers in my home. I did this until I was able to lease and renovate the large property across the alley from my first center. Upon completion of the large property in 1997, I was able to open my first center up to just infants and toddlers and my large center became the home for my youth and preschool programs.
In 1999, I moved out of my home in Lafayette and renovated this area to serve infants. This made it possible for me to serve more families.
In 2001, I opened a second center in Boulder at the Frasier Meadows Health Care Facility. Here, we provide care for children 1 to 6 years old. The children participate in many inter-generational activities.
In 2006, I renovated the infant house to be able to provide care for infants and toddlers in the same building. I then moved our youth in to a larger building. We now have three buildings caring for 97 children at a time. We have an excellent program providing care for English and Spanish speaking children.
We are a specialty center providing care for children from varied backgrounds. We provide a solid foundation for all children and help them develop healthy social, emotional, and academic skills. We give all the children the opportunity to grow and develop in a healthy environment allowing them to learn at a pace that is good for them.
Over the past 25 years, Take-A-Break has grown at a successful pace and I have had the opportunity to serve thousands of children. In addition to running the centers, I serve as a board member for The Colorado Child Care Association, as well as, served on the Citizens Police Academy for the City of Lafayette Police Department, and I am a Master Trainer for The Child Welfare League Of America's Positive Parenting and Street Law programs. I also
teach “Becoming A Better Parent” parenting classes for LDS Social Services through the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
We opened a beautiful new facility in 2011. A few years later we were able to finish the upstairs portion of our building and add an elevator, gym and youth room. This building has been a true blessing and we have had the opportunity to serve several more families. The gym has been used for many wonderful team building, and child playing opportunities!
On March 13, 2020 the Covid pandemic hit us very hard. We lost 90% of our clients that very day. We immediately swiveled into providing care for first responders. We had to lay off more than half of our amazing staff. It has been a stressful time, but the Lord has seen us through it. We have slowly begun to re-open rooms. We are now about 70% full and hoping to increase to full capacity after all the employees return to work once again. We are so happy to see many smiling faces that we missed while we were closed.
2022-2024 has brought about several changes in the childcare industry. We now provide Universal Preschool for all children turning 4 before October 1st each year. This has given many families the opportunity to get free quality preschool. We are very grateful to the clients that stayed with us versus going into the school district.
We offer smaller classrooms and many teachers that have been with us for several years. We have trained all of our staff on positive guidance and the children are responding really well.
We have a positive outlook towards the future and look forward to the day when we are back up to pre-covid numbers.
I am excited about what the future holds. With positive thoughts and happy children anything in the world is possible.
With much love,D'Arla
In 1987, I began to work on the Take-A-Break concept with a friend and became business partners. Together we worked through all the stages of developing a corporation. We opened the back-up care business in October of 1989. Our main focus at that point was to provide back-up care to in-home care providers.
In 1990, I developed the concept of combining Corporations together to meet employee needs. Over the next several years, I began providing services for the BBDCA (Boulder Business Defendant Care Association) as well as three other large consortium's. This gave us a client base of approximately 58,000. In March of 1997 we scaled back our services to provide care to corporations on a private one on one basis and have been doing that since. In 1993, I opened Take-A-Break Creative Interest Center. I did combination care for children from 21/2 to 12 years old. I ran this program like a one room school house. I maintained my daycare home license and continued to provide care for a small number of infants and toddlers in my home. I did this until I was able to lease and renovate the large property across the alley from my first center. Upon completion of the large property in 1997, I was able to open my first center up to just infants and toddlers and my large center became the home for my youth and preschool programs.
In 1999, I moved out of my home in Lafayette and renovated this area to serve infants. This made it possible for me to serve more families.
In 2001, I opened a second center in Boulder at the Frasier Meadows Health Care Facility. Here, we provide care for children 1 to 6 years old. The children participate in many inter-generational activities.
In 2006, I renovated the infant house to be able to provide care for infants and toddlers in the same building. I then moved our youth in to a larger building. We now have three buildings caring for 97 children at a time. We have an excellent program providing care for English and Spanish speaking children.
We are a specialty center providing care for children from varied backgrounds. We provide a solid foundation for all children and help them develop healthy social, emotional, and academic skills. We give all the children the opportunity to grow and develop in a healthy environment allowing them to learn at a pace that is good for them.
Over the past 25 years, Take-A-Break has grown at a successful pace and I have had the opportunity to serve thousands of children. In addition to running the centers, I serve as a board member for The Colorado Child Care Association, as well as, served on the Citizens Police Academy for the City of Lafayette Police Department, and I am a Master Trainer for The Child Welfare League Of America's Positive Parenting and Street Law programs. I also
teach “Becoming A Better Parent” parenting classes for LDS Social Services through the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
We opened a beautiful new facility in 2011. A few years later we were able to finish the upstairs portion of our building and add an elevator, gym and youth room. This building has been a true blessing and we have had the opportunity to serve several more families. The gym has been used for many wonderful team building, and child playing opportunities!
On March 13, 2020 the Covid pandemic hit us very hard. We lost 90% of our clients that very day. We immediately swiveled into providing care for first responders. We had to lay off more than half of our amazing staff. It has been a stressful time, but the Lord has seen us through it. We have slowly begun to re-open rooms. We are now about 70% full and hoping to increase to full capacity after all the employees return to work once again. We are so happy to see many smiling faces that we missed while we were closed.
2022-2024 has brought about several changes in the childcare industry. We now provide Universal Preschool for all children turning 4 before October 1st each year. This has given many families the opportunity to get free quality preschool. We are very grateful to the clients that stayed with us versus going into the school district.
We offer smaller classrooms and many teachers that have been with us for several years. We have trained all of our staff on positive guidance and the children are responding really well.
We have a positive outlook towards the future and look forward to the day when we are back up to pre-covid numbers.
I am excited about what the future holds. With positive thoughts and happy children anything in the world is possible.
With much love,D'Arla
