377: How One Childcare Operator Scaled to 21 Schools Without the Tech Chaos With Dr. Jason Lody

What does it really take to grow a childcare organization without losing the systems, staff support, and community connection that make it successful? Dr. Jason Lody shares how Aventus grew from zero to 21 schools across six states, and the technology, operations, and strategy required to scale sustainably.

Kate Woodward Young and Jason explore childcare expansion, multi-site operations, acquisitions, technology, staff training, and family communication, including why a unified system and hands-on support can make all the difference. If you’re a childcare owner, operator, director, or multi-site leader looking to grow without creating operational chaos, this episode is packed with practical insights you can use.

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Transcript

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Childcare Conversations 0:00

Welcome to Child Care Conversations, the podcast where early childhood leaders like you get real-world strategies, honest talk, and a whole lot of support. Whether you're running one center or many, we're here to help you lead with confidence and clarity. This episode is brought to you by this quarter's sponsor, Playground, the all-in-one child care management software. We're all about managing monkeys and saving you time at your center. With this platform, you can. We're proud to partner with a team that's as committed to your success as we are. Learn more at tryplayground.com. Now, let's get into today's conversation. One we think you're really going to love.

Kate Woodward Young 0:47

Welcome back, and we are so glad to have Jason, Dr. Jason Lodi, join us again on today's conversation with Childcare Conversations. And we are excited. I love having Jason on, and not just as a guest, but even as a, you know, I'm going to say today he's a co-host. And so today we're going to talk a little bit about scaling not only your organization, but what does that look like on the tech side? Because I don't know. I don't even like trying to scale tech Jason with three pieces of equipment, let alone over 20 schools. So, Jason, for those folks who don't already know you, tell us a little bit about kind of how you got to the company you're currently with and vision, goals, those kinds of things.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

Sure. So again, thank you for having me. I always enjoy our conversation because uh most people won't know, well, most people won't know this, but you know, our conversation for this podcast typically begins about 30 minutes before taping, right? So it's there's a lot of uh energy that builds up to that press record time. And then people see us, look how energetic they are. Well, yes, they they don't know what has just been built up in our in our exchange prior to this. So I really appreciate that um that the runway that leads up to our our time together that's taped and and and on on the air. Uh but Aventus uh is Latin for the word success. And it started in 2024. After I exited a previous portfolio selling it to a national provider, I wanted to do something that I had done locally here in the Northern Virginia, Washington, D.C. area on a much larger scale. I wanted to challenge myself because I knew from my experience and my travels that the need for high-quality early learning programming is greater now than it has ever been before because of where we are in this world and in this country related to school readiness and family dynamics and the economy, right? The need for schools to be anchors in the community rather than a sole service provider. Um so I wanted to try to find a way to change the narrative of who we are and why we do what we do with the focus on quality, school readiness, and building dynamic long-term family relationships that support them beyond the time that the child is in our care.

Kate Woodward Young 3:14

Well, I love the anchor angle because I think that that is a piece that a lot of programs miss. I think we we know programs that are quality programs, we know programs that are, you know, on the school ready path. But I think that community anchor, um, I think is a piece that a lot of programs are really missing. Um and partially, you know, even if you're um local, but if you are part of the franchise or a part of a national, I think it's even harder because you don't really understand the heart of the community. Even if your staff are local, there's still that disconnect. And I love that that has been part of your mission and your growth. So, because of that, one of the things I want to make sure that we also talk about is that you're not just in Northern Virginia and Washington, D.C. anymore. How many states are you guys currently in?

SPEAKER_00 4:03

Right now we are in six states, and we're looking at uh a few other states right now uh to expand into in the Northeast in particular. Uh, but we know we choose our states wisely and we try to grow in the existing states or adjacent states that we're at. So when it comes to management and support of our schools, support of our directors, uh being able to manage that multi-site uh operation uh with a footprint that isn't too far spread out makes it both economical as well as sustainable and realistic to manage.

Kate Woodward Young 4:36

Love that. And here's the big question because you haven't said this yet. How many programs did you start with? And how many do you currently have? And how long did that take you?

SPEAKER_00 4:46

Well, I started with zero. And uh our first school um landed on our uh on our portfolio in our network on December 28th, 2024. So in 2024, the year event has started, we had one school, but it was with us for like three days. And then 2025 is where a majority of our schools uh kind of uh you know came to being, whether it was through a single site acquisition or multi-site acquisition. And so right now we have 21 schools, all but two are currently open and operating. One of the two vacant schools will be licensed next week and opening next week in in Georgia. And then the the second school also in Georgia were slated to uh to open that sometime early September.

Kate Woodward Young 5:37

And if I recall correctly, all of these are acquisition-based programs. So these are folks who had been in a local community, maybe had been a heart of a local community, and the owners have decided to retire and move on.

SPEAKER_00 5:52

Almost all of them. There were a few where the previous operator had ceased operations, and so the buildings uh were available and we moved right on them, knowing how uh supportive those schools were to the communities that they were located in. We didn't want there to be too much um disruption of care. Uh, even though the provider had chosen to retire or move on with another venture, uh, we knew that service was essential for those communities. So we were able to just to move right in and pick up where the previous provider left off.

Kate Woodward Young 6:27

So if somebody's listening to today's episode, Jason, and they're like, wow, that's really cool. I'd love to do something like that, maybe in my own state or in neighboring communities. What do you think is something that really like it helps you go? That's my kind of program. What does the anchor or the heart of a program look like that you're like, yeah, that might fit our portfolio? How did you determine that?

SPEAKER_00 6:52

That's a really great question. Because the communities where we serve are so unique and so different. What I did not want to do is create such a narrow kind of assessment tool to determine whether or not a school was going to be a good fit or not. That's what a lot of national providers do, right? A lot of national providers have, you know, a threshold of how many private pay versus subsidy families can exist, a minimum square footage, a minimum license capacity. And I, as important as those data points are, uh, there are many more that we look at that are more qualitative uh than quantitative. And that helps us develop a balance of how that school is going to fit uh because at the same time, we are running a business. So if we shift entirely to the qualitative, then we're gonna end up not being able to sustain that school because it will feel good, right? It'll be nice, but it's not gonna be able to sustain itself independently. And most of our schools are working towards independent stability because we do find, especially in these high-need communities, schools that are are just not operating at its full potential. So it takes time, it takes energy, it takes investment to get them to where they need to be. And we we're we're we're generously patient in that process because we have our hope set out on their potential growth. So what we do look for is um first, we have to identify if the need still exists, because you can't be an anchor in the community if the community is evaporating. So if there is redevelopment where housing is is is leaving in exchange for retail, right? Um for us, the amount of cars that drive by the front of the school isn't as important to us. We're not selling a commodity where people will stop on the way to and from work to pick up a new battery or uh, you know, um some dinner. Uh so that's not as important to us. But if if the population doesn't exist anymore or year over year has been declining, well, that's a that's a factor for us to take into consideration. Uh, we also want to look at um what the local school districts are doing as well. A lot of our research goes into what the climate is like educationally, because if we're seeing uh school board conversation around uh bringing early childhood programming into the uh into the schools that are operating, then that might be a sign that there's competition down the road. Um and then what we also look at uh are um the reputation uh history. What is the reputation history? Because that's going to help us determine what our starting point is and if we need to rebrand, press reset. Uh, because you even even if you do press reset and start a new brand, most of the time that reputation is still going to follow you because you have the same address. So when people type in that address, it'll come up with those instances that may or may not be what you want attached to your name, and you're gonna have to deal with that. So it gives you some preparation work that you might need to put into uh, you know, having a proactive approach to messaging and uh a fresh feel for the school.

Kate Woodward Young 10:12

So as you have started to, I mean, because 21 locations is a lot of locations, and you did it pretty rapidly. And with that, I'm sure they all had their own. We use this technology or we use this platform, or um, I still do things with us, like with a with a paper pencil or some post-it notes. What went into from because one of the things that I think is great is that you all have a great office staff. Like the office was in place, the back end, the support programming was all in place before the first school. And every time I think about that, I'm like going, most people don't go, I want one to 20, and definitely couldn't do one to 20 without having that infrastructure in place.

SPEAKER_00 10:57

Right.

Kate Woodward Young 10:58

So did you already know going in what technology were you were gonna use? Did you kind of have an idea, or has this been one of those some people use this, some people use that, and you went, nope, you gotta get everybody's gotta be on one type of machine, one type of equipment, one type of software. What did tell me a little bit about what that process looked like? Maybe mid mid-cycle, because I I'm sure you probably even if you had an idea before you started, that was only a few schools, so that might have changed even as you went through and and kind of you know had to figure out how to how to do that. I just the whole concept of rolling out software for 21 schools makes my tummy uh it's a dynamic process, right?

SPEAKER_00 11:44

Because there's there's that pre-planning where you say this is what we want. And then as you acquire, especially schools that are already operating, you you know, you do your assessment before you even close on the deal to see what systems, if any, are in place, uh, what technology, if if any, is being used, what the infrastructure looks like. Does it have Wi-Fi? Like the the the the wide.

Kate Woodward Young 12:08

So did you okay? So did you have some schools that didn't have Wi-Fi?

SPEAKER_00 12:12

We had some schools that not only didn't have Wi-Fi, they had clipboards and they had um post-its and they had um uh cash and WhatsApp, and they had uh you you name it, it has been a um uh uh hodgepodge of of um operational designs, if I might say it that way.

Kate Woodward Young 12:38

You're so polite. I love that.

SPEAKER_00 12:41

Well, could because like in the due diligence, it becomes difficult where if you need a document like a PL or an attendance report, and then you get from the seller a picture emailed to you of their clipboard with their roster on it, all handwritten. So, you know, so you can't even take that and export it and then start, you know, plugging it into any existing, you know, uh wet spreadsheets that you might have to do some projections. Like it, there's a lot, it was a lot of manual uh accounting for some of the schools that we acquired. But we knew what our our our non-negotiables were for all of our schools, right? Because for being a multi-site operator, we needed to have insight into what's going on in our schools wherever we are. If we're at an airport waiting to go to a site visit, or we're here at the central office, or we're in the school, we should not have to go to a file cabinet and open it or have someone do that four states away to scan something or take a picture of it. It's not efficient, it's not safe. Uh, and it's it's just not where we're at in the 21st century. So we needed to know what our starting points were, what our baseline was, and how much of a delta there was to close and how we were going to do it. Because sometimes it was just a matter of getting the tablets in the hands of the teachers to use to capture the moments of the day and the messaging and communication for parents. Sometimes it was a a director who's never used a laptop before. And we're a Mac uh entity, right? We're a Mac uh organization. And so people, when you see a Mac book, they they either love it or they really dislike it. There's no, you know, oh, let me learn. I've always wanted to. No, you either wanted to or you don't want to touch it at all. And so there was a learning curve. And uh, you know, all those factors uh went into uh before we even got the keys to the proverbial keys to the building, what we needed to do ahead of time to get that level of tech competency in place so that the tools that we do use, which are all web-based, could be used effectively and uh, you know, like not have to worry about how how do I, oh, we spent this last 45 minutes talking and I've been on mute the entire time. Right. So those those things that um that are are part of our reality, but can also slow us down if we don't take the time to get what needs to be in the buildings for us to be connected to them and for the schools to be connected to the families, and the ability for the teachers to use all the tools, web-based and hard, you know, hardware that we're investing in to the fullest of what they're capable of.

Kate Woodward Young 15:26

Okay, so I just I'm nosy. So did you like now I have more questions? Okay, so did you offer some training for some of your staff on literally how to use the MacBooks and how to use the soft how to use the equipment before even getting to the software?

SPEAKER_00 15:42

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. We we I'm a big fan of at elbow coaching, right? Because if there's if there's a tech divide generationally or competency, whatever, whatever the divide is, if there's a tech divide, hopping on a Zoom call is just you know, amplifying that divide. Like, how do I do that? And and or they're doing it on their phone. And hello, I can't see you. How do I turn my camera on? The at elbow support is essential for us. So our regional directors, or myself, even at times when I have visited a school in advance of uh the acquisition, I would bring in, I have a MacBook, I would bring mine and say, this is going to be very similar to what you have. How comfortable are you with MacBooks? And that right away you get that love-hate uh response. And then you know, okay, let me just show you some features. It's just like a regular uh computer. Like you turn it on here, there's the screen. Like there's no secret sauce that Macs have, right? It might have some different functionalities and the keys are in the same way. Look, ASDF, G S, JKL, semicolon. Like it's the same keyboard. So helping build that comfort, like yeah, Macs have its own language and they have its, you know, its own, you know, very cultish following, but there's a reason behind it with the um, you know, uh the dependability, the reliability. Yeah, it's it's expensive, but in the entire time Aventus has been around, we have not had to replace uh a laptop. And if it has been damaged, Apple Care has fixed it. So there's there's ways to get people more comfortable in using it, but the only way that we have found to be the most successful is at Elbow. One of our directors, and I I will brag about her all the time, she she never used a laptop before. She always had a desktop and like those old big monitor desktops that you know generate lots of heat. Uh and um and and she she was fine with that. And then we brought her this without letting any of us know, she spent hours on her own time watching YouTube tutorials on Mac for new users. And she she kept bragging at how how I was she was able to do this. And she advocated for herself and she found a learning pathway that she was able to do with great success. And now she is one of our biggest embracers and uses tools that she has found to aid in her work as a director. But it gave her the confidence to try something way uncomfortable than you know, she would not have done on her own anyway. So yeah, uh, at elbow and the the resources that exist at the touch of a few fingertips on the keyboard is what we use to bridge that divide.

Kate Woodward Young 18:27

You know, I think that that is that that alone, if I don't care, I mean, we haven't even gotten to what we were going to talk about yet, um, but I think that's huge. So for those of you who have maybe heard bits and pieces of me talk over the years, you may or may not know that um that tech divide is where a lot of my early school age programming started. So literally I was writing baseline female and minority-based curriculum before year 2000. And um, and you know, uh about 10 years ago, I was writing curriculum for the University of Texas for computer science teachers on the best way to teach computer science to girls, to women, and to minorities, because not everybody learns technology exactly the same. And that's right, exactly. Now, when we offer our CDA training, even because of the ePortfolio and the whole filling out the online application, booking an online exam, taking an online exam across the state of Texas, which, as you can probably imagine, has all different kinds of levels of technology infrastructure. We now actually offer four hours as part of our CDA in person at that workforce board's computer lab on actually doing the ePortfolio, actually registering to take the exam, actually practicing taking an online exam. Because if you've never done that in a testing center, oh my gosh, yes. And and the CDA is designed for people who are not necessarily excited about taking college classes. So, um, and folks of all different ages and backgrounds. So um I I I have shared a little bit of my geekiness, and so I am so excited to hear how important that is to you because I can imagine that that really is probably an unspoken um staff retention component because we know that there are folks who leave after a new owner and we may not know why. And I think you have identified something that could potentially be um something that hopefully other owners, regardless of you've got 90 locations or two locations, if you're looking to expand or you can't figure out why you keep losing some staff, perhaps after a tech upgrade, um, did you try to train them on Zoom or did you physically go someplace and um because you know there are computer labs all over the country, every community has them. Some of them are literally free, community-based community lab computer labs. There are um computer schools where you can rent those computer labs and stuff like that. And then there's of course your high schools and middle schools and even some elementary schools that have the tech labs. So um, and if you can't find them, email me. I'll find you some.

SPEAKER_00 21:21

So And if you if you have a Mac product, the Apple stores, every Apple store in your area has free classes. You bring your device for the topic that they are covering, and you can work live on your device and get at elbow support from an Apple genius. So there's no shortage.

Kate Woodward Young 21:40

If you have a school age program and you're looking for a field trip, their field trips are awesome. Okay. So now Jason, all of these programs, they all need tech. Talk to me about what was a major tech issue you had. How did you resolve it? And let's talk about. A little bit about that experience and not all of your tech products, because I would suspect you probably had more than one.

SPEAKER_00 22:06

Yeah. So, you know, one of the things that we've been and and and I think any any organization, whether you have a single site or your, you know, 2,000 sites plus, it's really important to be reflective and aware of what tools you have, how you're using them, if you're using them, right? You should always be reviewing what tools you have. Are you using them and are you paying for them?

Kate Woodward Young 22:27

And if you're not using them and paying for them, you're ready to do it.

SPEAKER_00 22:30

Exactly. Especially nowadays, you know, back in the day, everything was a purchase. I got Adobe for $29. Now everything is a subscription. So you got it and you're still paying for it every single month. And even whether you use it or not. So that's why we always revisit our subscriptions and our technology. Because if we're not using it, then you have immediate cost savings right there. And we have found that with some of our tools, you know, everything is web-based now. So we we are so we're mindful of two things for our directors and for us. One is what systems and software are we cloud-based investing in and using to get the desired outcome that we're looking for in use of those, whether it's family communication, tuition and billing, or you know, design, graphic design, marketing, whatever it is, like what are we using it for? Are we getting what we're paying for? And are the users that we're paying for actually logging in, like you know, generating usage reports to see when the last time a director logged into Canva, all of our directors get a subscription to Canva. But if they haven't used it in three months, we take them off of it, right? So we, you know, there's accountability, but we're also just not going to buy subscriptions for the sake of them. Uh so that's the first thing, right? Always audit your your usage of everything. The second is uh, do the systems and softwares that you are subscribing to complement each other? Or do they make the tasks more burdensome? And we have found over the last year and a half uh a need to streamline our systems and software to be as much one-stop shop as possible. Because what we found on the user side, specifically with our directors, the more clicks they have to make, the less likely they are to be uh consistent with the practices that we're holding them accountable to, particularly CRM access for student uh leads and prospective family leads to have those communications, to book those tours or to move them along the CRM, as well as the student management system to monitor ratios, to monitor appropriate staffing and scheduling, to have family communications. If there are many disjointed systems that all operate independent of each other, one or more of those will be forgotten about. And so when the supervisor says, Hey, you haven't had any tour scheduled the last two weeks, like, oh my goodness, I have to go into this other system to see what tours are booked or what families have reached out. And by the time that happens, those leads are probably dead, right? Like, oh my goodness, I have that parent who messaged me. I didn't check my mailbox. Oh, but I thought we were going to do it through this system. So you have to be very streamlined because there are so many options out there, and the the desire sometimes is to get them all, because they all sound great. But if they all do just one thing, then is there something out there that might be doing two of those things? And there you already have a streamlined approach in that particular category. So we had to go through those panes. And initially we had a separate CRM because we outsourced our marketing at the time. So we had an outsourced marketing team that uh that gave us access to a standalone CRM. And then we had a student information system. Those things didn't talk to each other. So the directors had to log on to a different student, uh different CR uh CRM and then transfer manually the data into the student information system to schedule that tour so that student and that family was already in the system. Should they wish to enroll, then they can move forward and all that system setup has been started proactively. The disconnect existed right there between having those two screens open or those two web browsers open and knowing they needed to have both working simultaneously. And of course, it was duplicated effort, and that's not efficient. And if you have somebody with a tech divide, there's already two steps behind. It's not natural, it's not an innate, you know, uh uh ability that they are operating with. So it can also create anxiety and they, you know, and they they get further and further behind in the growth of the school, which is what we want all of our directors to do. So we try to find ways to to minimize and have as much one-stop shop as possible, which is what we ended up with where we're at now with our our use of playground, which combines both our CRM as well as our student information system, and it has been a game changer for us.

Kate Woodward Young 27:20

So talk to me real quick. So we're we're we're we're we've exceeded our 20 minutes, but that's okay because I love the conversation. So tell me a little bit about what it was like to roll out at that scale. Did you roll out in certain cities, certain brands over time? Like, how did that work? Was it easier to start with the ones we were on the clipboards? Like, talk to me a little bit of what that process might have looked like for y'all.

SPEAKER_00 27:42

Uh, we always take the rip the band-aid off approach uh because slow and steady, while the staying says it wins the race, it doesn't get us to where we need to be from a uh a multi-site management perspective. From day one, or actually take that back. Before day one, we're already utilizing playground. Before we even have the acquisition, we've sent out our welcome letter. We've introduced ourselves, we've been introduced to the community. We've also sent the link to get a playground account so that we can communicate with families and they can set up their building accounts and start putting in their student information, uh, which is going to be important for us. Um, additionally, we have a corporate uh operational policy that we only communicate with parents via playground. That way, people at the central office can see all the communications between home and school, and we can communicate with the parents directly uh with a with a dashboard approach where we're able to see all of our schools peek into our schools and then communicate as needed at the central office without having to find a parent's email. Um, and that has worked out so well and streams lines streamlines communication because people checking the app versus their email, it might go to spam, all those other categories of barriers to receiving messages, those are removed with the use of playground. And it also holds people accountable. At any moment we can peek in and see, oh, okay, well, this school is not really uh posting at the frequency and or the type of or the quality of content we're able to really hold our individual schools accountable. And that starts before day one because we we don't want there to be any excuse for delaying implementation. And even before day one, we need to know what we're what we're doing at those schools without being on site all the time.

Kate Woodward Young 29:33

I love that. Well, that is just a great reflection and a great way to think about um what does rolling out technology look like in any school? And I loved your tech audit advice. And I think that uh more and more folks ought to have that. Like we've got fire drills and we've got all these other things that we do monthly and quarterly. And I think a tech audit needs to be added to your calendar at the minimum quarterly, because we all have probably pulled up our end-of-the-year bank statements or credit card statements and went, what is that charge even for? And then you go dig around and it's from some software that you thought you got for a dollar and now it's $39 a month. Um, I almost did that today. I was looking at something, I'm like, oh, that looks really cool. It's only a buck. And then I read the fine print and I'm like, oh, it's only a buck for a week, and then it's $39 a month. And I'm like, but I don't know if I'm gonna like it. And I am one of those people. So again, another word of advice is if you're one of those people who went, ooh, look, I get to save 10% by buying it annually, I'm gonna tell you not to, because what if you don't like it? And so if you don't like it and you've now paid for a year, you've got it. And you know, or as soon as you know you aren't gonna like it or you're not gonna use it, immediately go in and make sure you're not gonna get hit with a a big year. Yeah, an auto-renewal. So absolutely. So well, Jason, thank you so much for for joining us today and being part of this conversation. And if folks, if you have more questions for Jason about what this implementation looks like, or maybe you want to have a little heart-to-heart uh community anchor conversation, all of his contact information is in the show notes. If you want to get a um demo scheduled for playground, that's also in the show notes. And if you don't already do follow us um on social media, you can find us at childcare conversations on every platform. And with that, y'all will see ya in a few days.

SPEAKER_00 31:35

Thank you for your time.

Childcare Conversations 31:37

Thanks for tuning in. We love bringing you real talk and fresh insight from the world of early childhood education. Be sure to follow us on social media to stay connected and catch all of the latest episodes. And if you're planning a conference, training, or special event, Kate and Carrie would love to speak to your audience. You can learn more about their keynote sessions and workshops at KateandCerry.com. If you learned something today, share the show and leave us a review below. We'll see you next time on Childcare Conversations.