goddardschool.com

Second Place: Weinstein Jewish Community Center

Third Place: Primrose Schools

After selling his former business, Autorent, to Enterprise Rent-A-Car in 2005, Ted Robertson bought two Goddard School franchises in Midlothian. He says he couldn’t be happier. With a rigorous education program — it teaches sign language to infants and Spanish to 1-year-olds — the Goddard School has a reputation for churning out pre-schoolers who are more than prepared for the rigors of kindergarten. (Did we mention that it teaches “baby yoga”?) In business school, Robertson never dreamed his biggest competitor one day would be “grandmas.” It’s hard to convince some parents that their children are in better hands with anyone else, after all. “One of my new marketing strategies is to try to come up with a grandmother program,” Robertson says, “where we can work with grandma rather than try to put grandma out of business.”