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Center Director- Premium Childcare

Lightbridge Academy of Columbia • Full-time • Columbia, Maryland, United States • $70k - $80k / year • 1w ago

Job description:

Center Director, New Center Launch

Open a school. From an empty building to a full classroom list.

Lightbridge Academy of Columbia · Full-time · $70,000-80,000+ enrollment bonus

Most directors inherit a center. You'd be building one.

We're opening a new early childhood education center in Howard County, and we're looking for the person who will make it happen — starting months before the first child walks through the door. You'll name the neighborhood partners. You'll hire every teacher. You'll run the tours that turn a curious parent into a family who stays for five years.

On opening day, the culture in that building will be the one you built. That's the job.

What you'll actually do

Fill the classrooms. You'll own the enrollment strategy from pre-sale through full occupancy — building the pipeline, working the leads, running tours that convert, and reading the conversion data closely enough to know what to change on Tuesday that wasn't working on Monday.

Put us on the map. Pediatricians, employers, realtors, hospitals, the chamber, the coffee shop with the community board. You'll be out in the neighborhood making the center known before it's open, and you'll keep showing up at the festivals, school events, and business breakfasts after it is.

Build the team. You'll recruit, hire, onboard, and keep exceptional educators — then coach them. The staff you assemble sets the ceiling on everything else, and you'll be the reason great people want to work here and stay.

Get it open, and run it well. Licensing, health and safety, inspections, readiness — all of it lands with you. Once you're open, you'll own daily operations, scheduling, budget, and the KPIs that tell you whether enrollment, staffing, and family satisfaction are heading the right direction.

What we're looking for

A bachelor's degree in Early Childhood Education, Business Administration, Education, or a related field — or the equivalent in real experience
3–5+ years of progressive leadership in a licensed early childhood setting
A track record of growing enrollment, not just maintaining it
Real experience hiring and developing teams
Fluency in state licensing requirements and what operational excellence looks like day to day
Comfort with numbers — you can look at enrollment and conversion data and make a decision from it
The kind of presence that makes a nervous first-time parent feel certain they've found the right place

Bonus points for: launching or expanding a center before, a background in sales, marketing, CRM, or community outreach, and experience owning a budget and hitting financial targets.

You'll love this if

You'd rather build than maintain. You like meeting people and you're good at it. You get a genuine kick out of hitting a number, and an equally genuine one out of watching a teacher you hired grow into a lead. You can run six projects at once without dropping the seventh. And underneath the business goals, you actually care about what happens in those classrooms.

Why this one

A center gets built exactly once. The families who enroll in year one will remember who greeted them at the door, and the team you hire will carry the standard you set long after opening week. Few roles in early childhood education let one person shape that much.

If that's the work you've been waiting for, apply. We'd like to meet you.

Benefits: