New owner at Children’s Lighthouse seeks to boost enrollment

The Children’s Lighthouse preschool in Riverchase has a new owner.

Ira Sullivan, a 15-year resident of Hoover, completed the purchase of the preschool in March and is working to rebuild enrollment following the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sullivan spent 12 years in public education and worked his way up the education ranks from teacher to administrator, and he said he always wanted to have his own school. So when the opportunity came up a couple of years ago to purchase the Children’s Lighthouse, he took the leap.

It took about two years to bring the deal to fruition, but it finally came to pass, he said.

Sullivan is originally from Uniontown in Perry County, between Demopolis and Selma, and came to the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 2003. He knew he wanted to be in a service industry and obtained his bachelor’s degree in health care administration in 2008, but quickly discovered he didn’t want to be in health care, he said.

He decided to give education a try, started substitute teaching and went on to get a master’s degree in educational leadership from UAB in 2014 and a doctorate from Capella University in 2016.

Sullivan’s first teaching job was at McAdory Elementary, where he taught third and fifth grades for three years. He then taught third grade at Matthews Elementary in Tuscaloosa County for two years before being promoted to assistant principal at Maxwell Elementary. He spent two years as an assistant principal and about six years as principal there.

He bought the Children’s Lighthouse in Hoover for about $600,000 from Tony Overman, a San Antonio, Texas, resident who opened the preschool in 2016, he said.

Sullivan had quite a commute to Tuscaloosa County every day, but now he’s only about

7 minutes from his home off Al Seier Road, he said.

He believes his background in elementary education makes him a good fit to operate a preschool because he has a good understanding of what preschoolers need by the time they reach elementary school, he said.

The Children’s Lighthouse is at 4731 Chace Circle, not far off U.S. 31 between the First Watch restaurant and the Alabama Power Co. Employees Credit Union. Its primary business is providing care and education for children from 6 weeks to 4 years, but it also offers an after-school program for children up to age 12. Buses pick up children from Green Valley, Gwin, Riverchase, South Shades Crest and Trace Crossings elementary schools and Brock’s Gap Intermediate School.

The Children’s Lighthouse, with a little less than 11,000 square feet of space, can accommodate up to about 200 students, Sullivan said. Enrollment was around 200 before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, he said. When the COVID-19 shutdown took effect, the preschool completely closed down for a few weeks, and when it reopened, it initially only had about 30 students, he said.

Parents were slow to bring their children back. When Sullivan took over the facility in March, enrollment had grown to about 95 children, and at the end of this school year, there were about 129 children, including about 29 older children in their after-school program, he said. There are 10 classrooms in the school, divided up by age groups.

Sullivan comes to the preschool about three days a week. He has a full-time director (Jasmine Thompson), an assistant director, curriculum director, 21 other teachers and a kitchen manager.

One reason enrollment is lower than capacity is that finding teachers has been difficult, Sullivan said. “We’ve had to turn people down because we just didn’t have the staff,” he said. “You have to go through hundreds of applications to get just one staff member.”

He has been focusing on recruiting and training teachers and has hired at least seven new staff members since he took over, he said.

He also has been beefing up security, installing additional cameras outside the building and finding a new security code system for parents.

There are a total of 60 Children’s Lighthouse locations, mostly in Texas, but about 25 more in the development pipeline. The Hoover location is the only one in Alabama, Sullivan said. While he owns the business, he is leasing the building but may try to purchase it, he said.

For more information, go to childrenslighthouse.com/hooveral.