Janet Adebanjo

My name is Janet Adebanjo and I am the owner and director of Pine Hills Preschool & Childcare Center and Little Angels Childcare & Learning Center. These two centers are dedicated to consistently providing quality education and grooming of children by rendering excellent care, quality learning and furnishing an enjoyable atmosphere at an acceptable price/value relationship. We also maintain a creative learning environment, which provides opportunities for the development of the children. These childcare facilities have been in operation for more than thirty years and I took them over about fourteen years ago. They are both high capacity centers and together on average we take care of about three hundred children daily. My centers include five early head-start

classrooms.

I have been working professionally for over forty years. I worked for twenty-one years in the banking industry. I worked for major banks both here and in Nigeria starting as a teller and left as an executive director and investment associate. I left the banking industry in 2003 to follow my passion in the childhood education field. My educational background and banking experience in human relations really prepared me for this business. I have a degree in economics, a National CDA and an advanced director credential. I have gone through many training sessions in early childhood education. I am a member of SEEDS and I have about fifty teachers employed in my two childcare centers. The majority of my staff have CDA and Associate degrees in early childhood and those with the DCF 45 hours training are being encouraged to get the CDA certification. This will help us in providing a high- quality early childhood education for our children.

I manage the two centers with the help of my husband, a director and four assistant directors. I have three children - my first son is 35 years old and is a regional director with Special Olympics Florida, my daughter is a Pediatrician with Center of Disease Control and my youngest son is a producer at a Multimedia company in New York. I am very passionate about early childhood education and I try to give my best to the children. I also try to follow the progress of the children who received their early learning education from my centers. I have attended their high school and college graduation ceremonies and last year one of them received an MBA from Wake Forrest University after graduating from University of Florida, Gainesville. I am very proud of all our achievements and I use my passion for early childhood education and my family's success as an example of how immigrants are going to continue to be one of the great pillars of our country.