Lightbridge Academy® Looks to Grow in Booming Texas Market, Expand Across the Greater Dallas and Houston Areas

Lightbridge Academy, the innovators in early education and child care with more than 60 open locations and 60 additional franchises sold or in development across the U.S., is expanding into the Lone Star State. With plans to open 15 locations in Dallas and 10 in Houston, each location will create about 35 jobs for the local community.

“We see a high demand in Texas and are concentrating our efforts in 2022 on serving the expansive markets of that state,” explained Jim DiRugeris, Lightbridge Academy’s senior vice president of franchise sales. “There has been an increase in the number of people moving to Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston, and there’s not enough quality child care providers currently in the area to support working parents.”

In particular, people have been leaving California and making their homes in Texas. The largest number of new Dallas-Fort Worth transplants came from the state in 2020 — with more than 16,000 people moved to North Texas from California, according to CBRE’s study of post office change of address information. This number was up more than 19% over 2019 totals. Many New Yorkers — more than 4,500 — also relocated to Texas.

One thing this influx of new residents means for the state is more working parents and the need for more early education child care and daycare centers. However, Texas is still suffering as a child care desert (a community with at least 30 children, ages zero to five, where the demand for child care is at least three times greater than the supply of child care) as a result of the pandemic. According to Children at Risk, From March-August 2020, child care deserts grew by 50% and one-fifth of reliable child care capacity was lost.

Lightbridge Academy, which was founded in 1997 and franchised in 2011, and specializes in not only providing high-quality child care and educational services to young children, but also supporting the needs of the busy working parent. The company offers programs for infants, toddlers, preschoolers and back-up care for school-aged children. Lightbridge Academy centers are equipped with a facial recognition entry system, internal video monitoring and silent alarms. Parents stay connected with the ParentView® Internet Monitoring, which enables them to check in on their child throughout the day.

“The Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston areas are ideal markets for Lightbridge Academy’s Texas expansion,” said Lightbridge Academy CEO Gigi Schweikert. “We strive to bring trusted child care in areas of rapid growth where options are limited, and Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth fit that market. Additionally, we understand the challenges working parents face and their real need to be supported, and this is why we develop industry-leading programs like ParentView® Internet Monitoring, a parent eCommunication app, extended hours and state-of-the-art security systems. Last year, we also introduced The Lightbridge Promise®, which is the gold standard in health and safety for child care, including the installation of an enhanced air purification and filtration system along with heightened cleaning and sanitation processes.”

With its expansion into Texas, Lightbridge Academy is filling a need in the child care space, as nearly two-thirds of the nation’s working families are already having trouble finding child care, according to the research and advocacy organization Children at Risk. On top of that statistic, upward of 4 million child care slots could be permanently lost if more is not done to stabilize the industry. The child care industry in Texas has an estimated impact of $8.7 billion on the state’s economy, according to a 2019 report from the nonprofit policy think tank the Committee for Economic Development (CED). Maintaining this piece of the economic puzzle is critical to the state’s economic health — and provides ample opportunity for Lightbridge to make a difference in the lives of working parents and their children.

Learn more about franchise opportunities at https://lightbridgeacademyfranchise.com/.