Today we’d like to introduce you to Bridgette Robinson and Aurora Perez-Olivares.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
Bridgette: I graduated from UC Riverside with a bachelor’s degree in psychology in 2008 when the market crashed, and I had a hard time finding a job. I was finally able to get a job as a behaviorist for children with autism, which put me into public school classrooms as a one-on-one aid. I decided that I wanted to become a teacher and went back to school to get my master’s degree in elementary education with my multiple-subject credential at LMU. While in the program, I met my husband, got married, and had two children. My husband and I were both passionate about bilingual education and decided we would invest in sending our toddlers to a bilingual preschool.
However, our residence was very far from any quality bilingual preschools. So we realized that we would have to commute a long way to have our son and daughter in this type of program, but we felt that our children’s education was worth it. We found a school on the way to my job in downtown LA, and that is where I met Aurora Perez, who was my daughter’s teacher. I immediately fell in love with her teaching and her personality! She was strong, bold, structured, and firm while still being nurturing, calm, and reassuring to the students. After I gained several years of teaching experience, and after Aurora left her teaching position at the bilingual school, we decided to collaborate on developing a bilingual school of our own!
Aurora: When I graduated from high school, I had no clue where life would take me. My passion and love had always been music. However, when I began attending college, life kept getting in the way. After I became a mother, I decided to take an early childhood education class, and I really enjoyed it. I eventually completed my associate’s degree in Early Childhood Education, and I was fortunate to find my first teaching position as a bilingual preschool teacher, where I fell in love with language-immersion education.
Into my second year, I had the fortune of meeting Bridgette Robinson. We kept in touch over the years, and as I moved to a new school, Bridgette and I decided to come together and create a school tailored to the needs of young minds, as well as to our community.
We wanted to be our own bosses and to establish a creative environment where both teachers and students are nurtured and encouraged to reach their full potential.
Has it been a smooth road?
Bridgette: The struggle is real! I had to fight to keep Aurora on the team because she is the most sought-after preschool educator in LA! Her previous school wanted to keep her, and they basically told her, “We will give you whatever you want, just name it!” All I could offer her was a vision. Luckily, we had the same vision, and she stayed even though at first, for about a month, we had no students. We struggled for a while, but as soon as word got out (through a lot of intense marketing and one-on-one conversations with parents), we had six children enroll in a month.
Aurora: There are always challenges when you have a vision. I was fortunate enough to have so many people believe in me as an educator. And I was fortunate to have an amazing business partner. Bridgette is truly a visionary and shares my passion for education. And now we are pursuing our dream much earlier than we expected. There have been financial challenges, yet I knew this was the right decision. No amount of money is worth my family and my happiness. Bridgette has truly made me feel welcome in her home, like one of the family. Our school is based on the philosophy that every child deserves a quality education no matter what language they speak, how much money their parents’ make, or what community they live in. I know there will be challenges, but we will face them together and continue to encourage each other to be the best moms and educators that we can be.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
Our little preschool in known for providing high-quality early education to a community that we feel has been neglected. Our school provides bilingual, STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education to active, imaginative little minds. We offer arts, inquiry-based environmental-science education, language classes, and mathematics using hands-on activities that engage students’ minds and bodies. We are blessed to have an extensive lush, green, outdoor play area, where children learn to love being outdoors and where they learn to appreciate the natural world around them. We have an edible garden, where children have the opportunity to grow their own vegetables and learn to prepare their own snacks.
Unfortunately, if you are looking for a preschool like this for your children, there are only a few places in Los Angeles that have it, and they are mainly in affluent neighborhoods such as the South Bay, the West Side, or in pockets of newly gentrified neighborhoods. We are determined to raise awareness about the importance of bilingual, inquiry-based STEM education to all families regardless of their socioeconomic status.
Contact Info:
- Address: 13213 Graystone Ave., Norwalk, CA 90650
- Website: thebesaschool.org
- Phone: 310-987-3454
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebesaschool/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thebesaschool/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/theBESAschool
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/the-besa-school-norwalk
- Other: https://plus.google.com/u/0/113419860134222556742
Image Credit:
Carol Singleton
Alice Lord
Getting in touch: VoyageLA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
