Sarasota’s Barancik Foundation to focus on early childhood learning

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February 3, 2026
3:28 pm

For Oxana Markelova, the first experience of placing her 3-year-old son into preschool was traumatic for them both.

Theo cried for a week and a half while attending the program, becoming hysterical if Markelova or her husband so much as mentioned the school.

“I was so stressed,” said Markelova, 36, of Nokomis. “At that point I thought there was something wrong with my baby.”

Doubting herself as a mom, she reached out to an online group of fellow parents, desperate to find quality and affordable child care. She and her husband worked from home. They needed it not only for themselves but to help Theo socialize with other toddlers.

“What do I do?” she asked.

After recommendations and a welcoming visit, Markelova chose Baby Fox Academy, a Sarasota preschool with low teacher-to-child ratios and a strong emphasis on play-centered early childhood education.

Markelova spent the first week glued to her phone, watching her son online through the academy’s cameras.

At one point, as Theo broke into tears, she saw academy owner-director Laurie McCracken perched on her knees at his level, talking to him, then giving him a warm hug. After a week, Markelova relaxed. By week two, Theo was racing to the door at home, excited to get to school. But what came next truly shocked her.

Within another month, Theo, barely speaking before, was chatting in full sentences, no longer interested in cartoons at home, preferring to play. If asked to wait for something, he did so calmly, sitting patiently until it was time to go.

“Absolutely like two different kids,” Markelova said describing advancements in her son’s development before and after enrollment at Baby Fox Academy, where on a recent morning he sat with a buddy, happily assembling Mr. Potato Head. “I saw major changes in his behavior and personality. It was huge.”

It is that type of experience with high-quality early childhood education that a local foundation hopes to help replicate for thousands of area families.

Addressing a crisis in child care worsened by the pandemic, the Charles & Margery Barancik Foundation has launched an Early Learning Initiative – seeking a transformation in the early-learning model itself.

The initiative was developed out of research conducted by University of Florida and Kemptom Research and Planning, commissioned by Barancik in partnership with United Way Suncoast and the Community Foundation of Sarasota County.

Based on those studies, the initiative will focus on four main areas: leadership development for center directors; recruitment and retention of teachers; behavioral health support in the classrooms; and public policy.

While the Barancik Foundation long has been devoted to programs serving children – including the First 1,000 Days initiative – this is its first big step into the complex world of early childhood education, said Kelly Romanoff, innovation and impact officer for the Barancik Foundation.

The push behind the initiative, she said, was the pandemic – which caused temporary and sometimes permanent closures of child care centers, wreaking havoc not only for the already overwhelmed early-learning system and its teachers, but also for working parents forced to miss time at their jobs.

“It was evident that if we’re going to get our economy back and truly meet the needs of families, it is going to require a strong system of early learning,” Romanoff said.

What’s more, foundation members saw through research that child care facilities sit at the intersection of many social issues – from the building blocks of child wellbeing, literacy and development to parent education and support, to economic advancement, especially for teachers struggling on very low pay.

“You get such a bang for your buck when you invest in early learning,” Romanoff said.

Investment in teachers

Barancik’s research found that the quality of teaching has the biggest influence on student success. But often passionate teachers must leave the career they love because many of them can’t earn a living wage.

Their departure from the field worsened during the pandemic, Romanoff said, when thousands of child care centers closed across the country. Centers reopening in many regions haven’t been able to find enough teachers, causing more cuts to classrooms and longer waitlists. That impacts parents’ ability to return to work while kids miss out on preschool education.

To that end, as part of its initiative the Barancik Foundation, in partnership with the Early Learning Coalition of Sarasota, is distributing $750,000 in two rounds of retention bonuses to teachers at high-quality early childhood education centers in Sarasota County that serve children in need.

It also will be launching a recruitment campaign for new teachers and working with center directors and policy advocates to address wages long-term, as well as with policy experts on areas where local and state government could play a stronger role.

Also as part of the initiative, the foundation granted $408,000 to the YMCA of Southwest Florida and its early learning program – one of the largest child care providers in the region. The funds will go to boost staff and help the organization become accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children.

“Historically efforts to support early learning are insufficient and do not provide equitable opportunities for both children or the early learning professionals,” said Gene Jones, president and CEO of YMCA of Southwest Florida. “We will address critical and foundational issues deeply woven within the field. These efforts will create a best-in-class early learning model and build more opportunities for children in our communities.”

A lose-lose model

Many reports show that the current predominant national business model for early child care fails everyone involved – center owners, teachers, parents and children.

A plethora of research from the fields of neuroscience and psychology has demonstrated the crucial role of the first five years of a child’s life on the development of logic and language skills as well as emotional health, according to The Atlantic.

Yet, while there is broad public support and expectation for subsidized education for children from kindergarten through a state university or community college, children from birth through age five (and their parents) are mostly on their own, the report found.

When it comes to early child care, the United States has “the worst of both worlds,” it concluded – low quality and incredibly high costs. The average amount families pay far exceeds that in similarly wealthy countries, with per-child spending by families on child care rising 2,000 percent between the 1970s and 2000s.

The Atlantic put the average national cost of a full-time child-care program at $16,000 a year.

Child Care Aware of America notes that the actual price passed along to families can be different in some areas, particularly if the center accesses grants, putting the national average price between $9,800 and $10,200.

Still, the conclusion is the same: highly unaffordable child care for many families. Child Care Aware found that child care takes up 10% of the household income for one child for married couples and 35% for a single parent, it stated in a report titled Demanding Change: Repairing our Child Care System.

The reasons for the high costs are multiple, experts say.

First, though preschool teachers are often barely paid a livable wage, their salaries make up the biggest part of a center’s budget.

Regulations on the industry stipulate minimum teacher-to-child ratios, given that small children are involved. Numbers of teachers are not something a center can cut back on without impacting enrollment.

McCracken, owner-director of Baby Fox Academy, said she pays her teachers a little more than average – starting at $15 an hour compared to a common rate of $11 or $12 — and implements lower than required ratios.

“I would love to pay them more,” she said of her teachers, “but unfortunately salary is the hugest part of our budget, and it’s not something that we are willing to cut just to have more money in our pocket as owners.”

But prohibitive business costs prevent her from offering higher salaries and health insurance or being able to open her center to children younger than 2.

“I get calls every day,” she said of mothers of infants and pregnant women, wanting to get on the waiting list.

Care for babies is even more expensive due to requirements for even lower teacher-child ratios as well as expensive equipment for diaper-changing and washing stations, costing upwards of $15,000 or more to install.

As an independent preschool with no corporate backing, she would be forced to pass those added costs onto parents, amounts that could easily rise to $450 a week for one infant alone if she were to take in children younger than 2.

“For working-class families, that’s just not feasible,” she said.

There are brick-and-mortar costs of operating a building, too – with square footage requirements part of regulation standards – and business insurance expenses as well.

While many rents in the area are skyrocketing, McCracken said she is fortunate to have a landlord passionate about early childhood education, giving her a reasonable rate.

Directors make the difference

McCracken also benefits from having prepared a solid business plan before opening Baby Fox Academy last year.

She and her husband had both worked two jobs for years as they lay the groundwork for the center, which is warmly decorated with bright colors and includes an outdoor classroom with a small track for scooters and cozy coop cars. A storage room is full of supplies, as she refuses to let her staff pay for anything out of their own pockets – knowing how often teachers do.

And that is perhaps McCracken’s superpower – her vast professional experience: 30 years in early childhood education as a teacher and reading specialist in public schools as well as in preschool centers and as an in-home provider.

It is her type of high level of training and guidance as a director that the Barancik Foundation hopes to foster for other centers as part of its initiative, Romanoff said. The foundation plans to work with its partners to establish networks of mentorships and business training between directors. That includes exploring ways that “back office” or administrative expenses or insurance costs could be pooled or shared.

Directors, the foundation found, have the greatest impact on teacher satisfaction and overall quality of child care.

For Baby Fox teacher Katie Schieferstein, as soon as she walked into the academy for her interview, sitting in the well-stocked storage room, she thought, “Please, please, hire me.”

“I loved it so much,” she said of her first impression of the academy and McCracken. “I thought this is where I belong.”

Once hired, Schieferstein, 27, immediately felt the difference in McCracken’s approach to early childhood learning – steeped in research and centered on play.

Instead of having kids focus on worksheets for most of an eight-hour day as at her previous job, she and the other teachers engage with the children through play, in which kids attach meaning to what they are learning, enhancing the brain’s long-term memory. Play also gives teachers a chance to see children act out new roles or problems they’re grappling with, Schieferstein said, something harder to discern from worksheets.

In addition to getting paid better than she did at her last job, Schieferstein said she also receives bonuses at holidays and special milestones. She was recently promoted to assistant director.

What’s more McCracken and her husband have chipped in to help her with her tuition while she studies for her bachelor’s degree in early childhood education, supplementing her scholarship and own contribution.

“Laurie is like a second mother to me,” she said. “I can tell her anything.”

She goes to her for advice and questions about her coursework, while McCracken is constantly sharing the latest research with her staff.

In a profession marred by high turnover and attrition — an estimated 25% during the pandemic, Romanoff noted — Schieferstein said her experience at Baby Fox had had the opposite effect on her.

“When I came here,” she said, “that’s when I completely fell in love and found what I’m supposed to do the rest of my life.”

This story comes from a partnership between the Sarasota Herald-Tribune and the Community Foundation of Sarasota County. Saundra Amrhein covers the Season of Sharing campaign, along with issues surrounding housing, utilities, child care and transportation in the area. She can be reached at samrhein@gannett.com.

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Sarasota’s Barancik Foundation to focus on early childhood learning

Investment in teachers

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