Message from the Director:

 

Greetings! There is a real sense of excitement this summer at Francis Marion University as plans for the Gail and Terry Richardson Center for the Child move forward. I hope you enjoy this initial newsletter describing the building and programming plans that have resulted in the hiring of a child care director and groundbreaking on. The mission of the Center is to develop and disseminate best practices in early childhood education and development to parents, educators and the community. The Center will accomplish its mission through service, training, research and community outreach. Central to the center will be a quality preschool program providing service to over 100 children, six weeks to five years of age in a state-of-the-art facility and playground located on campus next to the Pee Dee Education Center (a consortium of 19 school districts). There will be two FMU classrooms adjacent to two preschool classrooms. What a wonderful training opportunity in that a FMU professor teaches their class then without leaving the classroom pulls back curtains and FMU students can directly observe into a preschool classroom of three or four year olds. The Center will serve as a laboratory school to train FMU students in early childhood education, psychology, nursing and other disciplines.