NE Oklahoma City childcare center offers unique education for kids
By Austin Breasette
On February 5, 2024
OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) – A northeast Oklahoma City childcare center provides more than just sending kids to the playground.
We’re talking about the Agriculture Sustainable Science Academy near NE 16th Street and Martin Luther King Boulevard.
The goal of the academy is giving kids a diverse education starting at a very young age. They learn things from the days of the week, all the way to growing their own food and even dealing with livestock in hopes that when they grow older, they will send them off to a better life.
“We want to make sure that this generation, this new generation, are really getting sustainable life skills,” said Dr. Tammy Gray-Steele. The founder and director of the National Women in Agriculture Association.
Those sustainable life skills start with food.
“And literally, as you can see, we grow the food here for their meals, food to table, including eggs,” she said pointing out their chicken coop on the premises.
Thursday, KFOR was given a tour of the facility and we saw several rooms for different age groups.
“They have a little bit of everything, like a science center, an art center, a reading center, their gross motor skills center,” said the academy’s social media manager Kiera Esparza.
The playrooms have tons of toys, books and even indoor plants. They also have a full gym for physical fitness. Not to mention they have chickens and greenhouses outside for a nutritional and nature emphasis. Their plans also include academics as they want to teach kids sign language and Spanish so that they are bilingual by age 5.
“We plan to invest back in our children, so at the age of 18 they will have a genuine jump start in life,” Gray-Steele said.
Gray-Steele said they plan to establish a trust fund for kids with three years of consistent enrollment. In the end sending the kids off into the world, all after starting with a foundation of “where our food comes from.”
“We want to make sure any parent that wants to invest in their children and they can’t afford to do so, we can do it for them,” Gray-Steele said.
Gray-Steele said the sustainable science academy has over 60 chapters in the U.S. and over 20 in Africa. She said they have also been working with Congress on a bipartisan bill for over 10 years on equity and inclusion for minority women and children as they work to keep kids safe from both incarceration and death.
This piece was republished from KFOR.