Lancaster pa daycare: Low Income Child Care Services and Programs Lancaster County PA

YWonderful Kids – YWCA Lancaster

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Since 1978, YWCA Lancaster has provided safe, nurturing, and enriching Child Development services for children ages six weeks to five years old. Year-round programs are also available for school-age children in Lancaster City and Penn Manor School District through age twelve. These flexible and affordable services enable hard-working families to continue earning an income while ensuring their children receive a quality education.

YWonderful Kids

We are currently enrolling children in our Pre-K Counts Program

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We still have spots available for 2022-2023 school year.

Our curriculum demonstrates a commitment to eliminating racism and offers children opportunities to celebrate differences and learn to value diversity. All YWCA Lancaster Child Development programs embody the ideals of the YWCA – peace, justice, freedom and dignity for all.

All of our staff meet or exceed state licensing requirements. Subsidized care is available through various funding sources. YWCA Lancaster does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, disability, age, sexual orientation, national origin or any other characteristic. Resources are available for those with limited English proficiency.

YWCA Lancaster Child Development programs voluntarily participate in the Pennsylvania Keystone Stars Program. Keystone STARS is an initiative of the Office of Child Development and Early Learning to improve, support and recognize the continuous quality improvement efforts of early learning programs in Pennsylvania.

Programs

217 children received subsidized care enabling parents to utilize otherwise inaccessible services

Payment Options

To ensure your child receives quality, on-going care at YWCA Lancaster, the following payment options are available for parents and guardians. Payment is due in full each Friday; late payments will incur an additional charge of $10.

Tuition Express Auto Withdrawal

Preferred payment method. By signing up, your account will always be current and no late charge will be applied. If funds are not available by Friday, you will receive a $25 service charge for insufficient funds. To enroll, please complete the sign-up form.

Tuition Express Online One-Time Payment

One-time credit card payments can be made at tuitionexpress.com. Contact us to set up your account.

The following payment methods incur an additional charge of $2.50 per transaction to offset the costs associated with processing payments. These payments are accepted at YWCA Lancaster’s front desk between 8 a.m. – 4 p.m., Monday – Friday.

• Credit Card Payment
• Cash Payment
• Check Payment

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Home | Small Wonders Daycare

Our Approach

We see every child as a small wonder! At Small Wonders Academy imagination and education combine! Small Wonders Academy is a family-owned and operated small business located in Lititz, PA. We are not a corporate company!

It is our mission for every parent to place their trust in us to care for their child, in such a way, as to think of us as part of their extended family. We feel there is no greater service than helping children grow academically, socially, physically, emotionally, and spiritually during their all-important formative years. While we provide loving, safe, and quality childcare, 

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Rooms

Infants

6 weeks – 12 months

Between the cooing and cuddling, our passionate teachers enjoy guiding your baby into the wonderful world of language and offer endless opportunities for development and discovery.

Pre-Toddler

12 months – 24 months

The second year of life is so full of wonder and curiosity, and we know that pre-toddlers can be a bundle of endless energy! We provide a safe environment for exploration, excitement, and exercise. We channel that energy into learning and fun!

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Toddlers

2 – 3 years

At this age, toddlers will have a language explosion and will understand more than they say. The first few years of a child’s life are key to the development of speech, language, and cognitive skills.

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Pre-Schoolers

3-4 years

Preschool education is an essential step on the path to kindergarten and your preschooler will learn through creative play, constructive centers, daily circle time, hands-on activities, and planned cognitive learning experiences. We offer a balance of freedom and instruction!

Our daily circle time is based around our weekly theme where we introduce and review the letter and number of the week, as well as continuing color, shape, and name recognition.  

Pre-K

4 – 5 years

The goal of our Pre-K Curriculum in preparation for Kindergarten. The key components of our program include phonetic reading readiness, math skills readiness, developing responsive listening skills, increasing the length of attention span, fine and large motor skills development, social and emotional well-being, and health and wellness.

Pre-K learning experiences continue to be driven by the needs of the children, through our Creative Curriculum.

School Age

5 – 10 years

We provide transportation to and from the following:

Lititz Location: Warwick School District Elementary Schools (Lititz Elementary, Kissel Hill, John R. Bonfield, John Beck).

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Our Before School Program provides elementary school students with a fun and engaging learning environment during the hours most parents/guardians are working. 

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Our after-school program is offered to students who already have a sibling registered with us.

Our Learning Environments

What Parents Are Saying

“It takes a big heart to shape little minds. Thank you for your kindness and patience! We truly appreciate all of your hard work and the attention you give to each child.”

The Berk Family

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Special Education – Lancaster School District

State and federal special education regulations require each school district to notify the public, by posting an annual public notice to parents, in newspapers or other media, of the school district’s identification and verification activities, location, and the timing of these events, as well as any evaluation activities that take place in the Lancaster School District.

The District is required to provide Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) to children with disabilities who are assessed as requiring special education and related services in accordance with IDEA and 22 Pa. School Code §14. A school-age child with a disability who is defined as requiring special education and related services is defined as a child with a disability who is eligible for special education and who needs specially designed instruction. The following categories of disability under IDEA:

• • Autism
  • Deafness
  • Deafness / blindness
  • Emotional disorder
  • Brain injury
  • Hearing impairment
  • Specific learning disabilities
  • Intellectual disability
  • Multiple disability
  • Other health disorder
  • Speech and language disorder
  • Orthopedic disorders
  • Visual impairment including blindness

Gifted Education

Parents who suspect that their child needs specially designed education beyond what is required in 4 Pa ​​School Code §22 (in relation to academic standards and grades) may request in writing that their child be assessed in accordance with the criteria of the School Code 22 Pa. §16.22.

Early Intervention

In Pennsylvania, any child between the ages of three and primary school district age who has a developmental delay or one or more of the physical or mental illnesses listed above is defined as an “eligible young child. ” Children younger than novices and at least three years of age are considered to be developmentally delayed if one of the following conditions exists: 25% of the child’s chronological age in one or more areas of development as evidenced by test results that are 1.5 standard deviations below the mean on standardized tests. Areas of development include cognitive, communication, physical, social/emotional aspects and self-help.

Eligible young children are granted the same rights under IDEA and 22 Pa. School Code §14, as for school-age children, in order to determine whether they are eligible for special education services through the selection and evaluation process. Once a child is determined to be eligible for special education, an individualized education program will be developed for the child.

The Pennsylvania Department of Education is responsible for providing programs and services to eligible young children under Act 212 of 1990, the Early Intervention System Act. Screening of pre-school children can be done at the Lancaster-Lebanon Intermediate Unit. For more information, please contact Lancaster-Lebanon Intermediate Section 13 at 717-606-1601.

Screening

Screening activities are carried out on an ongoing basis throughout the school year. Screening is done at the student’s home school unless other arrangements are required. Parents can request a screening for their child in writing by contacting their child’s school. When a review indicates that a student may be a child with a disability who is eligible for special education, the school district will seek parental consent for an evaluation.

Verification actions cannot block the parent’s right to request at any time, including before or? during educational activities, an assessment to determine if the student is a child with a disability and is eligible for special education services.

Evaluation

An “evaluation” is a procedure used to determine whether a child has a disability and whether the child’s disability is of a nature and degree that would qualify the child for special education and related services. The assessment procedures used are determined on a case-by-case basis by a multidisciplinary assessment team that includes parents. Parents are requested to provide permission for the evaluation through a prior written notice of initial evaluation and a consent request form. The assessment team takes cultural considerations into account when determining the assessment tools to be used for the student. A single test or procedure cannot be the only factor in determining whether a child is eligible for special education services. The initial evaluation must be completed and a copy of the evaluation report must be provided to the parents no later than 60 days after the agency receives written parental consent. An assessment to determine whether a child is a child with a disability and eligible for special education does not include procedures or basic tests that are administered to all children.

Parents who believe their child is a child with a disability may at any time request that the school district conduct an assessment to determine if the child is eligible for special education and related services. This request must be submitted in writing to the superintendent of special education. If a parent makes a verbal request for an assessment, the school district must provide the parent with an Authorization for Evaluation – Evaluation Request Form to complete.

Parent-Initiated Assessment

If a parent receives an independent educational assessment at private expense, the results of the assessment must be considered by the district, if they meet the district’s criteria, in any decision regarding the granting of FAPE to the child. In addition, an independent educational assessment may be presented as evidence at a due process hearing.

Educational Placement

If the assessment team determines that the student is eligible for special education, the IEP team develops an educational program based on the assessment that determines the type of service, level of intervention, and location of intervention. The IEP team must include:

• School District Representative (LEA)
• general education teacher
• special education teacher
• Parents of a child and student aged 14

The IEP describes the student’s current educational level, goals and objectives, and the individualized programs and services required to provide the student with FAPE. These services may include:

• Educational support
• Life Skills Support
• Emotional support
• Touch support
• Support for the deaf or hard of hearing
• Support for the blind or visually impaired
• Speech and language support
• Physical support
• Autism Support
• Support for multiple disabilities

A student’s placement in special education must be in the least restrictive environment in which the student’s educational needs can be met. All students with disabilities should be educated to the maximum extent possible with their non-disabled peers. A student’s IEP is reviewed at least once a year.

Services for Protected Students with Disabilities

Consistent with state and federal laws, and 15 Pa School Code Chapter 22, the district will provide each protected student with a disability, without discrimination or cost to the student or family, those related assistive facilities, services, or accommodations that are necessary to provide an equal opportunity to participate in and benefit from school programs and to participate in extracurricular activities to the maximum extent consistent with the student’s ability.

To be considered a protected student with a disability, a child must be of school age with a physical or mental disability that significantly limits one or more essential activities that prohibit participation in or access to any aspect of the school curriculum. These services and protections for “protected students with disabilities” are different from those that apply to all students who are eligible for or deemed eligible for special education services and must be designed to meet the individual educational needs of a person with a physical disability such as adequate as the needs of non-disabled people. faces meet.

The school district or parent may initiate a student evaluation at any time. Parents wishing to have their child assessed should contact the school principal or counselor for more information on assessment procedures and provision of services for protected students with disabilities.

Confidentiality

The District protects the privacy of student-identifying information in accordance with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) 1974 and other applicable federal and state laws.

Parents have the right to check and verify their child’s education records. The District will comply with a request for review and review of educational records without undue delay and prior to any IEP meeting or any due process hearing, but no later than 30 days after the written request is submitted. Parents have the right to the school district’s response to reasonable requests for clarification and interpretation of records. Parents have the right to request copies of records.

While the district may not charge a fee for searching or retrieving information, it may charge a fee for copying as long as it does not prevent parents from effectively exercising their right to inspect and view records. Parents have the right to appoint a representative to check and verify their child’s documents. If any educational records contain information about more than one child, parents are only entitled to check and view information related to their child.

Fire at Grenfell Tower

The immediate cause of the fire was a short circuit. The power surge happened at the most inopportune time. It was almost one in the morning, the height of summer, many residents of the 24-story high-rise were asleep. The owner of apartment No. 16 on the fourth floor of the tower was awakened by a fire alarm. The man quickly called rescuers, and in just six minutes the first calculations were at the scene. But even despite such promptness, a refrigerator caught fire in the kitchen led to a horrific tragedy, the victims of which were more than 70 people. The Grenfell Tower apartment building in London burned all night, turning into one huge toxic candle. And the reason that the disaster took on such proportions was not even an ignited electrical appliance, but a banal desire to save money. In the entire post-war history of Great Britain, it was the worst fire in a residential building.

Social utopia

North Kensington is now one of the most expensive and prestigious areas of the British capital. Bohemian Notting Hill and the most fashionable quarters in the area of ​​the royal Kensington Palace are nearby. However, before the Second World War, in its place there were real slums, where an explosive mixture was formed by migrants from the British Caribbean colonies and the white working population. The clash of cultures eventually led to race riots at 1958, after which the London authorities began to solve the problem radically.

The district was badly damaged during the Nazi bombing of the city, and what became a grief for many of its residents allowed the municipal government to launch an ambitious program of building social housing in the most affected areas in accordance with the urban development paradigm that changed in the post-war years.

For some reason, it seems to many that the construction of multi-storey housing by industrial methods is a purely Soviet invention, then spread by the communists to the entire socialist camp. Meanwhile, this is far from being the case. In many Western European countries (and even in the USA) in the first post-war decades there was exactly the same trend, which was based on the old ideas of Le Corbusier. It was actually an inevitable stage in the development of cities, due to two major factors. Firstly, it was necessary to restore the housing stock lost during the Second World War as quickly and cheaply as possible, so that people who lost their houses and apartments could quickly return to a relatively comfortable existence. Secondly, after the end of the war, urbanization noticeably intensified. The rural population began to willingly move from the provincial hinterland to large settlements, where there were much more opportunities for employment, and people needed to be settled somewhere.

Great Britain was no exception in this sense.

Of course, the scale of industrial residential construction in the country was far from Soviet. The outskirts of London were not built up with panel “ghettos” going beyond the horizon, however, in the 1950s and 1970s, the point construction of residential complexes of this kind was carried out quite widely and everywhere. In the local tradition, such objects were called estates.

One of these complexes, later called the Lancaster West Estate, found a place in North Kensington on a site cleared from dilapidated slums. The original plans of the architects were, as usual, very ambitious. Three tower houses, which served as high-rise accents, were supposed to contrast with more low-rise, elongated buildings. The set included an administrative building and a shopping center. At the same time, pedestrian and car flows were carried to different levels, a park and other infrastructure were built in accordance with the understanding of the urban ideal at that time.

The general plan of the district was developed in 1964, but the implementation of even its first phase dragged on for ten years.

By 1974, only the first of the towers was completed, which received the name Grenfell Tower along the nearest street, a little later three more modest buildings were added to it. By this time, the philosophy of residential construction has changed again. The short golden age of British tower blocks was coming to an end, and the Lancaster West Estate remained unfinished. But Grenfell Tower was commissioned and occupied, becoming an island of social housing in the future prestigious London area.

Road to disaster

Grenfell Tower, designed by Clifford Wearden and Associates, looked quite modern for its time. Concrete brutalism was still considered a fairly relevant aesthetic trend, and the level of amenities provided was incomparable to the slums that the high-rise building replaced. In plan, the 67-meter tower was a square with a side of 22 meters. In total, it had 24 floors, the top twenty of which were occupied by apartments. Each level housed four three-room apartments (British standard apartments with two bedrooms, area – 75.5 square meters) and two doubles (one bedroom, 51.4 square meters) – a total of 120 apartments with central heating, sewerage, gas and electricity. The four lower floors were reserved for various public spaces, such as a kindergarten and a sports club.

The construction scheme of the building was also quite innovative.

The load-bearing columns formed the outer frame, eliminating the need for internal load-bearing walls and allowing flexible layout. In the center there was a core with all utilities, elevator shafts and stairs.

The residential complex, of which Grenfell Tower was a part, was positioned as a social one, and for all 43 years of its existence it has not acquired a different status. Among the residents of North Kensington, after the settlement, the building was nicknamed the “Moroccan Tower” because of the predominant ethnic composition of the residents. The ethnic composition changed over time, but the vast majority of the inhabitants of the tower remained migrants or descendants of migrants in the first or second generations.

Alas, there were some costs involved.

The new apartment complex quickly became one of the most crime-prone areas in the area, considered a particularly dangerous place during the annual carnival in nearby Notting Hill. Lancaster West Estate and Grenfell Tower had a particularly difficult reputation in the 1980s and 1990s. Since then, crime has improved in London, but even in the 2010s, this quarter was sharply different (and not for the better) from its neighbors in terms of residents’ incomes.

It cannot be said that the London authorities did not pay attention to Grenfell Tower. On the contrary, in the middle of the 2000s, the tower was renovated, and this is the very case when it would be better not to do it, because then a catastrophe of this magnitude simply would not have happened. At the beginning of the decade, in the park adjacent to the residential complex, the construction of two new social facilities began at once – a sports complex with a swimming pool and a gym and a secondary school. In parallel, it was decided to “put in order” and the old tower hanging over them 1970s, so that its tired appearance by that time did not contrast so much with new buildings.

The renovation plan, developed in 2012 by Studio E Architects, included several stages at once.

Firstly, in 2015-2016, the lower four levels of the building underwent redevelopment, as a result of which seven new five-room apartments appeared on them at once (with four bedrooms, area – 101.5 sq. m). Thus, the number of apartments in the tower has grown to 127 units. Secondly, the windows were replaced. Finally, thirdly, the house received a new cladding, which not only modernized the appearance of the object, but also increased its energy efficiency. Alas, it was the last works that in the near future turned out to be fatal for 72 people.

Out of a desire to save money

There was not enough budget money to replace the internal engineering networks during the renovation of Grenfell Tower. By that time, its residents had repeatedly complained to the local council, including problems with electricity. The authorities acknowledged the problems with sudden power surges, but somehow did not manage to solve them or did not want to. At about 00:50 on June 14, 2017, the very short circuit of the Indesit refrigerator in apartment No. 16 on the fourth floor of the tower happened. The owner of the apartment, Behaylu Kebede, woke up from fire alarms to find clouds of smoke in his own kitchen. The fire brigade received a call about the incident at 00:54, and by 1 a.m. the first two rescue vehicles arrived at the tower.

It took several minutes to organize the extinguishing process. Experts entered the apartment at 01:07. According to their reports, within minutes, the flames from the refrigerator spread to the window and then to the outer cladding of the building. Then the situation developed rapidly. While additional crews were approaching the tower, while firefighters were trying to put out Kebede’s kitchen, the flames rapidly spread along the walls of the Grenfell Tower and reached its roof by 01:30. The fire is out of control.

The tragedy revealed the imperfection of the response to this kind of catastrophe. According to internal instructions, the dispatchers of the emergency number 999, which was called by the residents of the tower with reports of a fire, told those to stay in their apartments. These were the recommendations developed for high-rise buildings. The mass evacuation of the stairs began when the precious first minutes had already been lost. By 01:38, 144 people were able to get out of the building. Further, the pace of evacuation decreased significantly due to the beginning of smoke from the stairs. Firefighters working inside faced near-zero visibility and extremely high temperatures, which only made it difficult to carry out rescue efforts.

The fire continued to spread along the outer walls, and in the end almost the entire skyscraper was engulfed in it.

Despite the fact that by that time the number of fire brigades exceeded 40, it was not possible to extinguish the fire with any efficiency for a long time. Only a day later they were able to take it under control, and the last fires were finally eliminated only by the evening of June 16, almost two days after the tragedy began.

In total, the disaster claimed 72 human lives, including two victims who died from the consequences already in the hospital. Most of the dead were poisoned by combustion products. Four people from despair jumped out of the windows of their apartments and crashed.

The situation has taken such a catastrophic turn because of the materials chosen for the renovation of the building. During a tender to renovate the house, it turned out that refractory wall cladding products would cost local authorities £300,000 (nearly $370,000) more, so the variant that involved the use of combustible materials that were not resistant to fire won.

Contractor Rydon Ltd. applied the following scheme for the new finish of Grenfell Tower.

The outer shell was made of Reynobond PE aluminum composite sandwich panels. They were a 3 mm thick block with a polyethylene core between two aluminum sheets. Under this outer layer, an air gap was left for ventilation (50 mm thick), after which there was a Celotex RS5000 insulation, which was attached directly to the original concrete facade of the tower. The thickness of these plates was 150 mm, and they were made of polyisocyanurate foam, the very name of which does not bode well. Naturally, due to an attempt to save budgetary funds, all this was not fire resistant, and in the process of burning it released toxic substances.

The investigation into the causes of the tragedy dragged on for years. In the process, it turned out that in the UK there are about two hundred more buildings with an equally dangerous cladding. It, of course, was subject to dismantling and replacement with non-combustible materials. Similar earlier incidents, the experience of which was studied after the events of June 14, 2017, showed that to prevent this, it was enough to apply a fire-resistant base to prevent the rapid spread of fire. The Grenfell Tower example demonstrated that the desire to reduce the cost of a project, ignoring the performance characteristics of materials (the panels used were not intended for high-rise buildings) ends in death, the death of dozens of innocent people.

Alas, the price of the lesson, as usual, turned out to be terrible.

Litigation of victims of the fire, relatives of the victims with responsible persons and authorities continues five years after the disaster. And Grenfell Tower still stands in its place, only the facades of the tower were bashfully wrapped in light fabric.

Read also:

• “The Day We Die”: how a fire in a nightclub led to the resignation of the government and a huge corruption scandal
• This disaster was the largest in the history of world oil production on the continental shelf. Why did 167 people die in the North Sea?
• Nightmare near Mont Blanc: how a truck on fire killed 39 people in a mountain tunnel

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