Prime Time Early Learning Centers

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Rochelle "Ricci" Wasserman, along with her husband and partner Joel Wasserman, established a school that not only teaches but nurtures children from infancy through school age. Prime Time's comprehensive program includes fully licensed child care for infants and toddlers; a dynamic education program developed specially for 3 and 4 year olds; a full-day preschool; before- and after-school enrichment programs for elementary school students; and a summer camp for children ages 3-10.

Prime Time Early Learning Centers has New Jersey locations in Edgewater, Hoboken, Mahwah and Paramus, and New York locations in Middletown and Farmingdale. All our facilities are licensed by the State and offer a superior curriculum that exceeds State licensing requirements. Our directors hold advanced training and our carefully selected staff provide loving care to each child in our charge, and teach important skills that pave the way for future school success.

Prime Time Early Learning Center is a school whose curriculum reflects the most current educational research and is designed to assure the development of all skills necessary for students future school success. All Prime Time centers offer an environment that is safe and loving, with a staff that is well trained, highly motivated and dedicated to each child's well being. Prime Time is dedicated to fostering harmonious home-school relations through open communication with parents and strives to always be responsive to the needs of families and the community.

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It's so clich, but it really does feel like only yesterday that my husband and I enrolled our daughter, Christina, in Prime Time Preschool in Westwood, NJ. As she prepares to graduate from college next week, I wanted let you know that, to this day, I credit Prime Time with getting her off to an exceptional start.

Any working parent who commutes to New York City can understand our anxiety about putting our three-year-old daughter in daycare for 11 hours a day. I sat on the West Side Highway -- stuck in rush-hour traffic, in tears -- more times than I care to remember. But on those evenings, there was an amazing Prime Time teacher named Karen Lambert who stayed with Christina, reading with her, going over numbers and shapes and colors, giving her the kind of one-on-one attention that can really make a difference. When I went overseas to South Africa on business for eight days, the teachers did a terrific job of helping me prepare Christina for my absence -- explaining where in the world I was going, assuring her I'd be back, and allowing her to share with her classmates the dolls and photographs I brought home.

By kindergarten, Chris was reading at third-grade level. I fully credit the Prime Time teachers for giving her a solid foundation and building her confidence. They instilled in her an early love of school and learning. By sixth grade, she told me her goal was to attend an Ivy League college and to, "be something BIG."

Next weekend, Christina will become a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of The University of Pennsylvania only the third generation in our family to attend college and our first Ivy Leaguer. Along the way, she spent six months studying in Johannesburg, South Africa. She has been accepted into Teach for America and will move to New Orleans to teach elementary school in the Lower Ninth Ward only blocks from the place my father grew up too poor to attend college. Ultimately, she hopes to go into a career dealing with public policy in urban education.

Feel free to share this note with prospective parents, but most of all, please share it with your directors and instructors, especially when they're having the kind of trying, exhausting day that anyone can have with endlessly energetic pre-schoolers. The payoff for your patience might not be obvious when you've got three little ones who want to sit in the same spot at circle time, or they have PlayDoh stuck in their hair. But hang in there: You never know how much impact your time, attention, and demeanor are having on those children, how much they're watching you and absorbing, and which ones will go on to do something big.