The non-profit organization CentroNia will open the doors of a new early childhood education center with a capacity of 150 children and looking to provide services for participants six weeks old to five years of age.
In 2017, the non-profit CentroNia pitched the Montgomery County Council to open a childcare center to serve 125 to 150 children from mixed-income families in the old Silver Spring Library. They received the approval at that time to move forward with the project and now, almost seven years later, they will be opening their doors to children and families in what had been deemed a childcare desert. According to a recent report from NBC Washington, the facility will be opening its doors to 600 – 700 applicants, and a waitlist of almost 1,000 families.
It is unclear how many of the participant slots could be designated to full-day, pre-kindergarten services that could potentially fulfill some capacity as required by the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future. CentroNia’s Takoma park location is already an accredited facility by the Maryland State Department of Education’s EXCELS program. That location is offering full-day pre-kindergarten to 3-5 year olds in a bilingual and multicultural environment. Their programs incorporate parent engagement and support, with the goal of achieving school readiness by the time children graduate from the program.