Exploring Life & Business with Ashley Chartier of NextGen Prep

Today we’d like to introduce you to Ashley Chartier.

Hi Ashley, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstories with our readers?
My journey started long before NextGen Prep. It started when I was eight years old, living in Paola Kansas and I became a big sister. My mother and father would rely on me to watch and care for my younger siblings after school for a couple of hours. Every Friday, they would give me allowance for my assistance. Fast forward to 2009, I give birth to my first child and that changed everything. Being a young single mother without a college education, I turned to what I knew best, caring for children. That’s when I started working for a nationwide childcare company. There I learned so much from my peers and my director and discovered my passion, but most importantly my purpose; early childhood education. I’ll never forget an experience I had early on while working with a wonderful little girl as her preschool teacher. The preschool director was friends with the little girl’s family and a few years later attended her kindergarten graduation. Our director shared with me that while at the graduation, she heard the little girl’s Mom stand up and make a speech where she stated “without my child’s preschool teacher, she would not be where she is today.” From that moment, I wanted more for the industry and for myself. I dove further into the education field and ultimately obtained my degree in early childhood education. I worked my way up to Center Director and stayed active in the field for over a decade before founding NextGen Prep with my Partners, Zoee Berry and Allison Linsey in 2021. We decided to found NextGen Prep to create our vision of a modern preschool focused on family orientation, innovation, and excellence in education. Over time we want our brand to stand out as a foundation not only in our community but also in the industry. We want to create a safe environment for our children where they can learn, grow and excel but as our children get older, we want to create an environment where they can be inspired.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Founding NextGen Prep has naturally run across many obstacles. We started out with the vision of creating a modern preschool anchored in family, innovation, and excellence in education. This is the foundation of our entire brand and how we’re building our preschool from the ground up. Starting a business naturally requires a lot of sacrifices. Sacrificing time away from family and those you love most. Now being a mom of four, it was very hard for me to be away from my children but I’m very thankful for my husband who showed an amazing amount of support during the start-up.

While we put a tremendous amount of effort into creating something which we believed would be special, as they say, “proof is in the pudding” and we can humbly say that so far it has been exceeding our expectations. The biggest challenge has been scaling up as fast as the demand for enrollment. We found ourselves 75% full only two months after opening and are continuing to fill up rapidly. Given this reception to NextGen Prep, we have just recently decided to expand the facility to increase our capacity by about 50% more children. We’re expecting to begin construction on the expansion soon and hope to have it completed around the start of 2022.

Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
My partners and I founded NextGen Prep in 2021 to be the next step in the evolution of childcare and early childhood education. We happily care for children from the age of six weeks up to six years old. The world is changing rapidly and the next generation of children will grow up in a world very different than their parents & grandparents. At NextGen Prep, we are combing real-world curricula and a family-style structure. We focus on more than just the basic needs. In addition to our traditional educational curriculum, we provide an environment focused on helping children build key skills in preparation for the rest of their lives.

Where do you see things going in the next 5-10 years?
Innovation is happening in all industries. We see it every day in the food we buy, the cars we drive, how the energy we use is generated, and how the internet brings things into our home. It’s a given that preschools have basic principles which will always be present from letters, numbers, shapes, and the trust of a caring and passionate teacher. However, I also expect innovation to evolve and expand in our industry as well.

We want to inspire children to think big by exposing them to some of the innovations they will see in the world. We want children to understand the full scope through which they can now dream.

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: Www.NextGenPrep.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nextgenprepllc/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nextgenprepllc
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/NextGenPrepLLC