Safari childcare east dundee: Safari Childcare – Daycare in East Dundee, IL
Educator to open new day care center in East Dundee strip mall
After more than two decades in the classroom, Vicky Camilo-Simmons is ready to turn a long-held dream of operating her own early childhood education center into reality.
Recently, she and her husband, Dwight Simmons, took over the vacant spot left by Safari Childcare in East Dundee’s River Valley Square Shopping Center.
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And by late-February, the Mundelein residents hope to be able to open the doors of Ideabox Childcare Inc., which they say will offer a play-based curriculum for children age six weeks to 6 years old.
“I taught for over 20 years, from pre-kindergarten to high school, and that’s my passion,” said Camilo-Simmons. “I wanted to open something that gives students at an early age an advantage…to be ready when they go to their kindergarten program or their first grade program knowing how to read, write, add and subtract.”
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Camilo-Simmons said “helping little minds shape the world” will be the program’s motto.
“Most child care centers are play-based. But because I’m an educator I’m going to incorporate education,” Camilo-Simmons said. “If you put academics in a play program it works. The kids no longer think they’re learning.”
This week, East Dundee trustees approved granting a special use permit to allow Ideabox Childcare to operate at 460 Dundee Ave.
Remodeling work continues at the site, which will operate from 6:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and offer classroom space, a large indoor gym and an outdoor play area, according to village documents. Ideabox Childcare will have about 25 staff members overseeing an estimated capacity of 146 children.
While the village previously had a space requirement of 150 square feet per child for an outdoor play area, based on 25 percent of the facility’s capacity, trustees approved Monday eliminating that stipulation from the village code, opting to rely instead on the Department of Children and Family Services’ statewide standard of 75 square feet of safe outdoor area per child.
Child care centers are inspected, regulated and licensed by DCFS.
The husband-and-wife team said they scouted out several locations before choosing the former Safari Childcare site.
“When I came into East Dundee and looked at the place, I knew that was my town,” Camilo-Simmons said. “I told my husband, ‘This is it. This is where we need to be.’ That’s how I felt. And we moved forward.”
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She explained that she’s excited about putting business roots down in the village.
“I’m trying to give back to a community that’s welcomed us with open arms,” Camilo-Simmons said.
For security, there will be a staff-operated entrance door to the Ideabox Childcare Inc. reception/waiting area and another staff-operated door to enter from reception into the classroom area after parent security check and sign-in procedures, according to village documents. Also, security cameras are expected to be installed throughout the center.
“She has been dreaming of doing this for the last 15 years.
And I adopted the dream. She loves teaching kids. That’s the biggest thing for her,” Dwight Simmons, a dentist with a practice in Wisconsin, said about his wife.
Safari Childcare lawsuit accuses DCFS employees of harassment – Shaw Local
By Katie Smith
Sarah Nader – [email protected]
Safari Childcare, Inc. in McHenry closed after a DCFS investigation found the staff didn’t have the means to run the daycare and improperly kept children’s medical records. Now owner, James Ourth, has filed a lawsuit against the DCFS investigators. (Sarah Nader)
McHENRY – The owner of a local day-care chain is suing Illinois Department of Children and Family Services employees for intentionally working to shut down five of the business’ day-care centers, according to the lawsuit.
James Ourth, owner of Safari Childcare Inc., filed the lawsuit in federal court Dec. 13 and named more than 20 DCFS employees he said harassed and destroyed the business in retaliation of a confrontation involving Safari and multiple, unnamed political figures.
Five Safari locations have already been closed, and Ourth fears DCFS will seek to shut down the remaining centers in Hanover Park and Mount Prospect. Ourth is asking the judge for a declaration that DCFS’ conduct was a violation of the day care’s constitutional rights and enter an injunction barring the department from continuing to harass the day care chain. The lawsuit asks for unspecified money damages.
DCFS representatives said they would not comment on ongoing litigation.
Safari’s former McHenry center, 2214 W. Route 120, closed abruptly in May 2015 after a DCFS investigation.
A license compliance tracking report from DCFS at the time showed the McHenry facility had been at the center of complaints since January 2011. There had been more than a dozen complaints the day care center violated state rules regarding class sizes and staffing. Staff was not equipped to properly discipline children and did not keep proper medical records for children, according to violations noted before the closing of the McHenry center.
The center’s staff also was accused of not immediately reporting two instances of suspected child abuse or neglect, and allowing a child believed to have scabies to participate in daily activities.
Ourth’s attorney, Sara Garber, did not respond to phone calls and emails seeking a comment over the holidays.
Ourth has owned and run day care centers in Illinois since 1991 and in 2006, renamed his business to Safari Childcare Inc., according to the lawsuit.
From 2006 to 2014 Safari ran multiple day care centers, including locations at Mount Prospect, Palatine, Cary, Bensenville, Streamwood, McHenry, Highland Park, East Dundee, Hanover Park and Belvidere.
The trouble began in 2010 when Safari began to experience problems with DCFS checks and noticed delays in licensing and other applications, Ourth wrote in the suit.
In the spring of 2010, Safari Childcare submitted initial licensing applications to run day cares in Streamwood, McHenry and Highland Park. At that time they also submitted an application to allow one of the Mount Prospect day cares on Algonquin Road to include night and weekend care.
Ourth stated in the lawsuit that DCFS refused to process and approve the applications in a timely manner, causing delays that stopped Safari from opening and expanding as scheduled.
Throughout 2011 and 2012, Ourth scheduled meetings with DCFS administrators and directors. When the administrators “were not supportive,” Ourth began contacting local political representatives and state senators, who Ourth said participated in multiple meetings with DCFS and Safari, according to the lawsuit. He did not name the politicians involved.
Ourth states in the suit that after an April 2012 meeting in which Ourth and political representatives confronted DCFS administrators about their alleged mishandling of day care licensing and regulation, DCFS began intentionally trying to shut down Safari day care facilities in retaliation by using state daycare policies in unfair and illegal ways.
Ourth accused DCFS of first purposefully delaying permits, licensing and renewal visits and then increasing the number of unannounced checks on the centers.
He also claimed the department repeatedly reported Safari for not cooperating with “minuscule, vague provisions,” and then didn’t offer clear, corrective plans.
From July 2013 to May 2015 Safari received five notices from DCFS stating the department’s wouldn’t renew licensing for five of Safari’s day care centers, all within 18 months of one another, according to the lawsuit.
The business was “effectively destroyed in less than two years” when centers were continually shut down, the lawsuit states. Safari’s Highland Park center was closed in June 2015; Palatine’s October 2016; Belvidere’s in January 2017; and Bensenville’s in April 2017.
“The closure of five Safari locations combined with the delays and financial costs associated with complying with [DCFS’] targeted, irrational and unlawful administrative enforcement actions, created a domino effect with regard to the other Safari locations. …” Garber wrote in the lawsuit.
The suit is up for a status hearing Feb.
14 at the Illinois Northern District Court’s Chicago office.
#McHenrymchenryMcHenry CountyJames OurthSafari Childcare
Katie reported on the crime and courts beat for the Northwest Herald from 2017 through 2021. She began her career with Shaw Media in 2015 at the Daily Chronicle in DeKalb, where she reported on the courts, city council, the local school board, and business.
Vintage in majolica, Hollywood safari, rhythms of Dubai and the Armenian alphabet – City Fashion Week continues in Afimall City – POPCAKE
Especially for the shows on the 6th floor of the Afimall City shopping mall, a podium of an unusual configuration was created in the shortest possible time, and a unique panoramic glass dome with an area of about 10,000 sq.m with an incredible view of the skyscrapers of Moscow City became a spectacular part of the scenery, visually transferring the fashion show of models to the evening metropolitan sky.
The second day began with a public talk on the topic: “Fashion of the future and new technologies” from Natalia Ermakova, founder of Sustain It, an agency for sustainable development and integrated solutions for brands.
Next, SofyaTereshina presented its collection on the podium. As part of City Fashion Week, the young designer presented the “Country” collection – a light summer fantasy on the theme of music and country style. All items are made of natural safe fabrics, and some outfits are repeated in handmade soft toys.
The next brand is Ninushka. Guests could see the Vintage collection, which was created with great love for the incredibly stylish grandmother Nina (grandmother of designer Elena Khalilova) and inspired by vintage models of her dresses from photo albums of the 50s. It carries a deep meaning – how wonderful it is to be a woman and admire yourself and others. The basis of the collection is vintage style combined with modern fashion trends and luxury Italian fabrics with majolica pattern.
Next on the podium was a master class from stylist Ilmira Kim . She talked about how easy and fun it is to use accessories and introduced the latest trends in the accessory group.
The next collection was shown by the brand TSUVANI . As part of its Family Look concept, the brand demonstrated TSUVANI family at the City Fashion Week show – clothes for those who value freedom and quality. Bright prints, symbolizing the dynamics of the rhythm of life in Dubai, luxurious alluring silk and golden fabrics are well-recognized markers of oriental culture. To create the collection, only premium quality fabrics were used – jacquard, cotton, linen.
The next brand of designer clothing by Irina Gribova is IGemotions, , which is distinguished not only by a creative, but by an artistic approach to creating clothes.
Designer Irina’s special idea was to write drawings by hand for absolutely every thing, without using printing. Emotions, memories, travel, nature and music, like frames of filmstrips, give rise to ideas for new patterns for T-shirts. It was T-shirts with hand-painted drawings on natural silk that were a special part of the brand’s creativity.
The Melody of the Forest collection reflects the main idea of the brand: art and comfort.
IGemotions looks that were presented on the catwalk – a combination of different textures with airy and weightless hand-painted silk. This is a synthesis of artistic art, this time reflecting the elements of the wind and embodied in unique models in the Casual style.
Then there was a show from the headliner SHATU . In its new collection, the SHATU brand rethinks the utilitarian and at the same time elegant style that has passed through decades, but remains at the peak of its popularity and demand – the safari style. In the middle of the last century, this laconic style was picked up by a refined public, inscribing it into everyday urban chic. But Hollywood brought him real fame. Thanks to such films as “Mogambo”, “Crocodile Dundee”, “Out of Africa”, the safari style has become associated with adventure, travel and romance, and their heroines – with charm and noble femininity.
Svetlana Shatunova, designer of the SHATU brand, drew inspiration from the iconic images of Eva Gardner, Grace Kelly, Linda Kozlowski to create her new story. The designer mixes the silhouette shapes of the safari style of the 50s, 80s and 90s, combining them with the brand’s honed iconic models and complementing them with new shapes. So for the first time in the history of the brand, such elements as a cape, a cape, a form of trousers in an oriental style, a new form of sleeves and a jacket dress appear in the collection.
Traditionally, the brand uses premium European raw materials, relying on high-tech fabrics with new textures. Thanks to the right materials, familiar products take on a new meaning.
The show from the brand NARNY closed the second day of the fashion week. The new collection featured feminine dresses, raincoats, skirts and blouses. This season, the designer took Armenian ornaments and the alphabet as the basis for prints and embroideries.
The idea of the collection is a conceptual and delicate combination of elements of the heritage of ancient Armenian culture and modern trends, silhouettes, shapes and colors.
Femininity and restraint are inherent in all collections of the brand. For each collection, the designer develops author’s prints for fabrics and hand-embroidered elements that have become a distinctive feature of NARNY products, as well as long flowing dresses that are the basis of the brand’s DNA.
On April 21, from 4 pm to 5 pm, a master class by stylist Alina Grebneva on the spring-summer 2023 capsule from the models presented in the showrooms will take place on the catwalk, and at 6.30 pm there will be a Public Talk on the topic “Opportunities for the development and promotion of the brand in VKontakte communities”.
Klimkova kids, PlayToday (children’s show), collective show CITY RUNWAY (Dina Khannanova, Tempeless, Manit.Moscow), Iliana Louta and headliner KUCHUGOVA will present their collections.
Also on this day will be a fashion show-collaboration “I keep walking” with the participation of models with disabilities, which will be held by the non-profit organization “Open World” and Russian women’s clothing designer Ksenia Knyazeva. Among the models there will be girls with various forms of limitations – using wheelchairs, prosthetic arms and legs, models with cerebral palsy. In the collection, guests will see graceful feminine silhouettes, trendy prints, stylistic geometry and interesting cuts – everything for bright people who are open to the world.
On April 22, guests of the City Fashion Week will be able to get acquainted with the collections of DEVUSI by Alena Tokareva, Rina Collection, MEATTING, EFR FASHION, Josephine Cashpar, VENERA and the headliner CHARUEL, , which is presented in the Afimall City shopping center .
On the final day, April 23, there will be shows of LEREDE, VAN CLIFF, Olga Lyutich, TURBAN SVS, Alena Nega, AnPer.