Private School Franchise With On-site Infirmary Celebrates 20th Anniversary

The Rainbow Station private school and emergency back-up care facility for mildly ill children is celebrating its platinum anniversary December 18, announced the franchise system founder and CEO Gail Johnson.

Rainbow Station has been offering extended day nursery school and preschool programming as well as after-school and summer camp programs for children ages newborn to 14 since doors opened 20 years ago on Three Chopt Road in Richmond, Va. One of the unique and highly popular features of the school is that it provides an on-site infirmary located in an architecturally separate building on the campus attended by a full-time pediatric nurse so that parents have emergency back-up care when their child is mildly ill. "The Get Well Place" has a dedicated HVAC system designed to prevent any cross contamination, and is additionally equipped with a room with reverse ventilation to further prevent the spread of respiratory illness within the infirmary. The infirmary is open to all children in the community regardless of whether or not they are enrolled in Rainbow Station.

"I saw a real need for this back when I was on the faculty of the Medical College of Virginia/Virginia Commonwealth University School of Nursing," said Johnson. "I was teaching child growth and development and supervising nursing students in a variety of settings. There was a trend that emerged: If working parents had perfectly healthy children, work life/balance was achieved. If there were ANY medical issues--from a major birth defect to chronic ear infections, there were few solutions. Working parents were in a real bind." The Richmond resident said she decided to build a facility that met the need for emergency backup care as well as quality preschool/school-age experiences for all children, and within the first year of opening the doors of her first Rainbow Station, the school was fully enrolled. "Now we're up to 9 facilities and we're still growing," said Johnson. Even today where 52 percent of both parents work in married households, 71 percent of single mothers work and 79 percent of single fathers work according to recent Census data, there are only 200 to 300 emergency backup facilities for mildly ill children in the United States. No other facility provides the full spectrum of services that Rainbow Station provides: accredited preschool/school aged programming, mildly ill emergency backup care, and support for children with special needs.

The academic program that Johnson developed is equally innovative. "The Village" is a pint-sized village for school-aged children designed for an interactive learning experience based on freedom and choice where students attend curriculum-driven activities in specially recreated versions of an Apothecary, Arcade, Art Gallery, Caf� Rainbow, Club 5, Gymnasium, Theater, Toy Shoppe and Village Green. The school adheres to the highest standards of quality as set forth by several accrediting bodies. Rainbow Station Schools and applicable accredidations are listed on the website.

To celebrate the anniversary, each school will create a time capsule as part of a campus-wide celebration on December 18 where students can place items to be opened 20 years from now. There will also be an alumni reception December 17 for all former students, faculty/staff and stakeholders.

Rainbow Station has received many accolades over its 20 year history. The Greater Richmond Better Business Bureau recognized Rainbow Station's marketplace integrity by awarding the Torch Award in 2006 - 2007, and, in a later competition, the International Better Business Bureau named it a top five finalist in 2008 for marketplace excellence. More recently, Rainbow Station was honored by being named to the Center for Companies That Care 2009 Honor Roll and by receiving the Richmond Human Resources Management Association (RHRMA)'s Employer All Star Award for Workplace Excellence for the second consecutive year. Johnson has also been named the Virginia Small Business Person of the Year in 1997, the YWCA Outstanding Woman in Business in 2002, received the Innsbrook Rotary Business Leadership Award in 2003 and was named Volunteer of the Year by the March of Dimes in 2006.

Rainbow Station is a private school with locations throughout Virginia, North Carolina and Texas.

About Rainbow Station Rainbow Station is headquartered in Richmond where it has six corporate schools with additional franchise schools located in Virginia, North Carolina and Texas for an overall total of nine campuses. Each Rainbow Station school offers private nursery schools and pre-schools with extended day programming for children ages 0-14. The three to four acre campuses include the highly unique feature of providing "The Get Well Place," an infirmary attended full-time by a pediatric nurse. The infirmary is located in an architecturally separate building on the campus and is equipped with a reverse ventilation system for children with infectious conditions such as Chicken Pox or the flu. After a quick diagnosis by the attending pediatric nurse and a medical records check, children are sent to one of four rooms based on their symptoms: The Whoozy Station for gastrointestinal illness, the Sniffle Stop for respiratory illness, the Spot Stop for chickenpox (or other contagious respiratory illnesses), and the Rest Stop for convalescent care. Academically, each campus offers a specially constructed "Village," a recreation program based on freedom and choice for the school aged child where they attend curriculum-driven activities in the Apothecary, Arcade, Art Gallery, Caf� Rainbow, Club 5, Gymnasium, Theater, Toy Shoppe and the Village Green. Additional information on the campus is available on its website, www.rainbowstation.org View Company Website: http://www.rainbowstation.org

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