Why Us

Why Choose Us for Your Child Care Needs?

A Rising Star Children’s Center is the dream of Gloria Foster-Vayda and Tom Vayda who sought to establish a dynamic, personalized educational environment for children in the Croton/Cortlandt area. After assessing the limited availability of quality preschools/daycares in the area, they decided to use their life experiences in education, psychology, and child care to create a loving, fun space where children could be excited about learning. A Rising Star Children’s Center is a place where children can discover and develop their inner abilities to become happy, independent, confident, and successful in their life journey.

There are so many reasons why we feel you should consider A Rising Star first for child care, preschool, and pre-and-after school care:

  • Over 15 years caring for and educating children.
  • Many of our clients are families with siblings which means repeat satisfied customers!
  • Run by educated professionals with extensive backgrounds in education and psychology. Over 40 years combined teaching and child care experience.
  • Intentional learning style — daily objectives, lesson plans, evaluations. Children learn, have fun, at the same time and are excited to participate.
  • Dedicated to helping children blossom into a happy, healthy, confident adults.
  • Four private outdoor play yards in a wooded, serene setting in a quiet neighborhood.
  • Children begin learning to count to 10 in seven languages before the age of two. We also teach Spanish words daily.
  • Award-winning curriculum — many children graduate from our program and become leaders in their elementary school classes.
  • We nourish your child’s inner talents while we focus equally on their social, emotional, and intellectual development. We believe teaching (and child care) is a work of the heart.
  • We are open for most school holidays, early release days and snow days.
  • Our main goal – to instill a lifelong love of learning while fostering self-confidence and independent growth.
  • Healthy balanced meals and snacks, daily, included in the tuition rate. Very limited sugar products, only whole wheat bread, etc.
  • Parents program — designed to facilitate a community relationship among the parents of the children in our program. We work closely with you and communicate daily about what your child has learned.
  • Our guiding principle is that we are “PICI.” We approach all we do with “Passion, Intent, Commitment, and Integrity”.
  • Standby Generator which means when the power goes out, we will be open!
  • Historic, stone castle like facility with warmth and plenty of room for your children to grow and play.
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