319: How Can Daily Leadership Check-Ins Transform Your Multi-Site Childcare Program? With Chris Mabasa

In this episode of Childcare Conversations, Kate and Carrie chat with Chris Mabasa, an experienced area director in childcare. Chris shares how his team keeps communication strong and leadership unified across four rapidly growing sites. Think daily check-ins, shared training, and creative staff events like the Dream Summit. 

You’ll pick up practical tips on building a supportive culture, empowering staff, and managing growth without losing that close-knit feel. If you’re navigating multi-site challenges or just want to boost your team’s connection, this episode is packed with resourceful ideas and a few laughs along the way! 

Check out our past Primrose Episodes:

243: https://www.buzzsprout.com/953587/episodes/16824455

278: https://www.buzzsprout.com/953587/episodes/17733101 

Thanks for Listening 🎧

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Transcript

Carrie Casey (00:05)
Well, today we're going to talk to Chris Mabasa, who I've known since he was just a teacher in a classroom. And now he is part of the management of a multi-site program. And we're going to ask him a little bit about how they manage the communication at a multi-site program while they keep expanding. Like everything was in a status quo for a long time. And then

They got one new building and then they doubled the size of that building and then they were like, ooh, let's build something from scratch. And so they're constantly having to explore new ways to communicate and keep everybody engaged while they're trying totally new things that nobody's ever done in their business before. So welcome Chris.

Christopher Mabsas (00:42)
You

Yeah.

Hi. Hi. Thank you guys for having me. ⁓

Kate Woodward Young (00:59)
Chris, why don't you start real quick

with a brief introduction about how long you've been in the field and what your current role is. know Carrie kinda, she's still part of your thunder, but I'm gonna let you expand.

Christopher Mabsas (01:11)
Awesome. I appreciate it. Yeah, I've been in childcare my entire basically adult life from coming out of high school and stuff. I started with a small program, a little mom and pop shop in Houston and grew from there. That was where I kind of realized I wanted to be in childcare. I was like, I like this. I didn't have like an upset path quite yet. And that helps steer that way. And then when I moved out to Austin about a

11 years ago, a little over 11 years ago, I got connected with Permrose. Christy had, Christy Black had just taken over Permrose and Bee Cave. And I just, saw a lot of growth opportunity there as Kerry kind of alluded to earlier, they are definitely growing. so quickly I just, I realized that I wanted to be in this and my goal was to be a director someday.

Carrie Casey (01:54)
Mm-hmm.

Christopher Mabsas (02:03)
Um, and the director at the time, she kind of inspired that as well. And, so, uh, I just stuck with it. And then we, expanded to, you know, two more locations. Um, I ended up helping out with the enrollment at our Mueller location when that fourth location opened, um, and, and from there growing and, uh, you know, I'd met Carrie a couple of times just from meeting the other directors, but, uh, I got to hang out with Carrie during COVID, um, virtually to do the director credentialing, um,

Carrie Casey (02:28)
Yeah

Christopher Mabsas (02:32)
we are director kind of left in the middle of Thanksgiving 2020 and I saw it as my opportunity. So I was like, let me, let me try and jump at this and, and ended up taking that course with, with Carrie. And from there was the director there for three plus years and then moved into this role. Now where I'm an area director for four of our locations, the fourth one just having opened that Eastern park location. And so,

just moving into there and doing still enrollment stuff, but also helping with the directors and everything as well. So yeah, it's been a long 18 year journey.

Kate Woodward Young (03:08)
Well, I think it's really exciting, Chris, and thank you for sharing that in a snapshot. And I heard you say something, and I'm just gonna kinda keep going with it. You mentioned that you took the director credential virtually with Carrie, and this is gonna be my version of a shameless plug, because we were the first virtual online director credential in the country in 2005. ⁓

Christopher Mabsas (03:09)
Yeah. ⁓

Kate Woodward Young (03:34)
Gotta love when you have a master's degree in instructional technology and they say, you have to put any course you want to online as your capstone project. And I went, okay, and you're gonna give me a grade for it. So, I did get a good grade. I did get a good grade. So now, ⁓ literally we are right about 20 years being an online course. And so we're really excited about it.

Christopher Mabsas (03:42)
Hahaha

Yes.

Carrie Casey (03:48)
you got a good grade.

Kate Woodward Young (04:02)
But one of the things that ⁓ we wanted to kind of chat with about is the fact that all of your administrative and leadership team have taken the same director credential. So not just that folks in your program are taking leadership training, but you guys have all had the same one. How does that work with having a common language? Because you

Do you guys have staff who have CDAs?

Christopher Mabsas (04:32)
We do have a couple that are either have them or trying to ⁓ achieve them. definitely ⁓ have those people in our program for sure.

Kate Woodward Young (04:43)
Absolutely, and you've probably got some staff with some bachelor's degrees and so a lot of your teachers have some shared language, but as you get into leadership that language can be depending on what people's backgrounds are, right? So you were a classroom teacher, you've got some other staff that came into childcare from different avenues and was this helpful? Talk to me a little bit about how that works for y'all.

Christopher Mabsas (04:51)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah, 100%. So in just our leadership programs as well, we do require everybody to be a teacher. I think that it helps already to have that background knowledge of being a teacher, being in a classroom, ⁓ to be able to build sometimes better than having not a degree or like things like that, but just just helps to know that and have been in a classroom. And when somebody tells you to do something, you know, they've done this themselves before.

Carrie Casey (05:27)
you

Christopher Mabsas (05:42)
⁓ And so I think that that also translates once you're in that leadership program, right? And you can be ⁓ moved into these management administrative roles that you still have that same verbiage that you're using in classroom. We're all learning from the same place. So you guys have obviously helped out with that where all of the directors have taken this course, all of the directors ⁓ understand the state minimum standards, all of the directors are understanding.

The business side of it, think is a big one that a lot of people that have just been teachers don't understand is this business factor. And that helps understand the owners a little bit, right? It's like, oh, okay, I understand why we have to have these enrollments and why we have to cut back here. I think that was for me, especially whenever I was moving into it, I was very like teacher driven and all these things. I was like, oh wait, there's a business side too. So you have to like think of finding that balance.

Carrie Casey (06:17)
Yeah!

Christopher Mabsas (06:36)
And I think that that helped, you know, having you guys help with that. so ⁓ everybody is kind of under that same understanding and has that same training that it kind of blossoms throughout the entire building.

Kate Woodward Young (06:49)
So in the show notes are gonna be the two links for previous episodes with Christie. So Chris, I know that as an organization, you guys do an awful lot of additional training that may be a little outside of the box. Tell me about what else you guys do that perhaps other programs might learn from.

Christopher Mabsas (07:09)
Yeah, so for our teachers particularly, we do still hold an in-service. We typically like to grab somebody who's ⁓ either inspiring in an education field or ⁓ is somebody that's helping with some of the behavioral things in classrooms. And so we like to utilize that opportunity before back to school. So we'll have that always back right fresh so that everybody's kind of fresh. Give everybody a refresher.

Carrie Casey (07:36)
Okay.

Christopher Mabsas (07:37)
They go on to breakout rooms where they're running ⁓

curriculum in one of the rooms. They're showing them some safety and health and safety things in another room. And all the teachers are just rotating and they're getting ⁓ to be part of our like a little class with a couple of our leaders, just kind of giving them a refresher in all of those trainings that they're gonna do ⁓ with them. And then we do try to host the lunch and learn every other month or so.

⁓ where they're getting refreshed on some of the Primrose values, but not just the Primrose values, also getting some of that state requirements stuff, right? And getting all of those things going so that they have, meet those health and safety needs and the abuse and things like that. They're meeting all those trainings. And so we do kind of implement those again once every other month or so in between.

Kate Woodward Young (08:29)
But you guys have some other opportunities for your staff, not just your annual in-service. You do another one too, don't you?

Carrie Casey (08:38)
⁓ she's just trying to get you to talk about the dream summit. That's what she's trying to do. I know what she's doing.

Christopher Mabsas (08:38)
The

You want to talk about the dreams of it? We know a couple

of familiar faces have been with us and a couple of these things. So yeah, the dream summit is amazing. The dream summit is actually something that's coming up. ⁓ We do it every like April timeframe. ⁓ And the dream summit is something that's just trying to pour back into the teachers. This is more of a opportunity for things that we've learned from our care sessions with them. And, they, if they want to, you know, ⁓ look at buying a house or

Carrie Casey (08:49)
Ha

Christopher Mabsas (09:10)
starting a savings account, ⁓ if they're just looking to get a little bit more ⁓ exercise, if they're looking to find a little bit more peace, everything like that. We try to have little guest talkers, they come out and they'll hold the Pilates class or they'll do a meditation, you know, and they break out in these little sessions and it's just pouring into the teachers.

Kate Woodward Young (09:30)
And some

crazy person put the meditation class next to Carrie and I one time. And I don't know what y'all thought was going to happen with that because they kept trying to shush us. And I was like, we have to do this workshop five times. We cannot be shushed. ⁓

Christopher Mabsas (09:45)
Yes, y'all

Carrie Casey (09:45)
Yeah

Christopher Mabsas (09:47)
cannot be shushed for sure.

Carrie Casey (09:49)
No, we're too loud. But

Kate Woodward Young (09:50)
You

Carrie Casey (09:53)
I love the fact that it's like, what are the dreams of your team? And okay, let me get you some resources for that. think that that shows an actual value for your employees, not just I need a body in a room. They want to be able to travel internationally. So we're gonna help them get that. By the way, that.

Christopher Mabsas (10:02)
Mm-hmm.

Carrie Casey (10:18)
I'll be happy to help with that session next year. Cause Kate and I love to travel and we can help people fill out passport forms. Cause I think everybody should be able to travel. But like those kinds, well, we love that, but like that concept and the values of we all want to speak the same language and when

Christopher Mabsas (10:20)
Yeah.

There we go.

100%. I needed you guys for the last 10 years.

Just got mine.

Carrie Casey (10:47)
our staff have something they want to accomplish, you guys find some ways to give them tools. don't teach them, you don't hand them the fish, but you help them to learn how to fish. You don't just go, here's your passport. That'd be kind of creepy. That'd be creepy if your boss came up and handed you a passport. ⁓

Christopher Mabsas (10:55)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, we got to walk the walk, right? Yes.

Yeah. Yeah. No, we got to walk the walk. Not just talk it. Yeah. A hundred percent. It does buy buy into it and they know we care. And hopefully, you know, I think that the retention helps with that and that overall helps everybody. Right. Is that so.

Carrie Casey (11:11)
But I really like the fact that y'all do that. Yeah, yeah.

Christopher Mabsas (11:27)
⁓ but we do, we do want to walk the walk. We don't just say that we care and do these things. then it is a vital part of our organization to have that dream summit every year, even if it's, it's landed on a snow day. And that's why you moved it into April. That's it landed on a really bad snow day one year. And we're like, okay, I don't know this is going to keep working. We got to move it around. And so we moved it in that and late March, early April timeframe. And, and, and then luckily we're not having to miss it or try to miss it. So kept it there.

Carrie Casey (11:55)
Yeah,

I remember one year it was like the day before Easter and that was a bit of a challenge too. Yeah. is that the reschedule? Okay.

Christopher Mabsas (12:00)
Yeah. ⁓

Kate Woodward Young (12:02)
a reschedule. That was the reschedule from the snow year.

Christopher Mabsas (12:03)
That was the reschedule

year. It was a bit of a challenge for sure, trying to get a space, trying to get people out that weekend, but it was definitely the reschedule. We'd already had the day off, so we were like, is the day we got to make it up.

Kate Woodward Young (12:07)
Yep.

Absolutely. So Chris, tell me, ⁓ what are some things that you guys do as a leadership team? So you guys have four sites, but you, your leadership team includes HR folks, chief operating officers, ⁓ curriculum folks. So you have more than just four directors and an owner. So you have an actual administrative team. And like you said, everybody has gone through the ranks as a teacher, as a director.

Christopher Mabsas (12:37)
Mm-hmm.

Kate Woodward Young (12:45)
everybody in that admin leadership all have the same language. What are some things that you think that y'all do that you've heard or even that you really just like that you do, even if you aren't sure other people do it, that you think folks listening might really get something out?

Christopher Mabsas (13:01)
I think the biggest, one of our biggest things is just a daily team meeting with among all of our, all of our leadership people. It helps everybody in the company. We want to be unified. We want to deliver the same message. We want to be able to do the same events and, and, know, celebrate the same successes and everything. And so what we do is we have a meeting every morning. I actually run the director meeting every morning. So I'll meet with all four directors every morning.

Just seeing what everybody's doing. ⁓ If there's anything that I need to get out to them information wise, that's the opportunity. We do have Selena who, Selena and Liz who run our curriculum part of it. They do the same thing with our curriculum ladies. We have another team member that runs with our office managers and then that covers the whole leadership team there. And they're all getting the same message. They're all getting to tell everybody like what they're working on that helps the other, their other ⁓ coworkers know like, yeah, I do need to work on these immunizations this week.

It is coming up. This is what we need to work on. And so it keeps everybody accountable. It keeps everybody on task. And overall, like I said, it just gives us the same message across the board. And everybody's doing the same thing. We want to post about this on Facebook today. We want to make sure that we're reminding the teachers to sign these things. We have to get this out. So best way to kind of get all that out without just telling everybody, go do your own thing. And everybody's figured it out.

And like I said, again, they help each other. helps those directors, the directors lean on each other. They call each other. Same thing with our curriculum coordinators and our office managers. It builds a tie, even though their schools are 20 miles apart, that they feel like they're in the same school, the same location, they can help each other. And they do. They sometimes will travel to the other school and go help one another or something. And so it just builds a nice bond with them.

Carrie Casey (14:38)
.

you

Christopher Mabsas (14:52)
⁓ As far as what we're doing on a day-to-day basis, that is definitely a big one.

Kate Woodward Young (14:57)
But I think that for a lot of multi-site programs if I said you had to have a meeting every single day with your directors They would have a small panic attack. How long is this check-in? How long is this daily meeting? Okay

Christopher Mabsas (15:08)
Oh, and 20 to 30 minutes, know, max. So it's 20 to 30 minutes.

It doesn't always start right at 10 30. You know, it's, it's, gotta be some days. It's, uh, you know, we all know the hats, the directors have to wear, you know, some days it's that director in the kitchen with their phone propped up and she's like, oh yeah. And I'm like, you go first, tell me all the things you got on your list today. Let's get it out of the way. All right. We're going to see what's up. And then, know, with, uh, if we can, go and support. Maybe she's doing the.

Carrie Casey (15:30)
Thanks.

Christopher Mabsas (15:34)
kitchen duties that day. And so it doesn't always necessarily have to start right at the right time. And you don't have to be on it the full 30 minutes, but it's just a quick check in with everybody. like you said, it's busy. Directors are busy. The administrative staff is running around like crazy sometimes, especially in these winter months where everybody's a little sick or down or out. So it can be a little bit hard to get on every day, but we still want to make that intention for sure too.

Carrie Casey (15:49)
.

.

Yeah. Well, and this is something that evolves. This wasn't something that you guys had when you had just two schools. Like it has evolved over time as you guys have gotten better at this leadership part of running the business. Cause it used to be a once a week call on Thursdays and now it's, you know, it's changed over the years.

Christopher Mabsas (16:07)
Right.

Yeah, 100%.

Yep.

Carrie Casey (16:25)
And instead of having an hour and a half meeting once a week, you can have these 20 or 30 minute calls every day and people feel more connected and less overwhelmed.

Christopher Mabsas (16:36)
Yeah, 100%. And, you know, I think that's definitely helped. We still have a quick 20-minute meeting. Every week is like a whole company-wide. Everybody jumps in leadership prize where we get all the information we need from Christie and Jordan, and they get all of that information down. yeah, the longer meetings have definitely taken a little bit of a cut, and it's easier to squeeze in a 15, 20 minutes here, you know, on a Monday, a Tuesday, all throughout the week.

Kate Woodward Young (17:03)
well that sounds great. So Chris, anything that you want to share before we wrap this up, if somebody's listening to this and they're maybe not sure, you know, maybe they're a multi-site and they're one of the directors, what might be a way for them to bring this idea of a daily touch point to their organization with maybe not panicking their peers or even the owner or even the leadership going,

Christopher Mabsas (17:25)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Kate Woodward Young (17:32)
I don't have time for that. how could you suggest maybe they bring this up?

Christopher Mabsas (17:34)
Right.

think in the long run, it helps to take a little bit of this time to stop a lot of the issues that happen that take a lot of your day away from you and a lot of the time away from you. It helps to, I think you would have to, I would say to a leadership group like that is like bringing it up is that it's important for us all to be on the same page. It gives us this time because then it'll take away and you won't feel as stressed in those moments. You won't feel as...

You know, like, oh, I'm running around crazy because you, have these meetings every, every week. You have these meetings on a daily with your multi-sites. You find out what other teams are doing in these conversations. You, helps to just to connect and be like, I haven't tried that way. You know, let me try this now that I've heard it from another person and that's helping. Maybe that school becomes a little bit less stressful. Maybe it becomes a little bit, um, where you feel like, oh, I do have 15 minutes to take to myself today. I know a lot of us eat lunch at three o'clock, four o'clock in the afternoon. You're like, I've been at.

10, 20 minutes, but I do think these conversations and being on the same page with your teams and across the company ⁓ can definitely benefit in that way where you kind of reach a level, you get to that level and you reach that peak where you're like, okay, I actually have time now because it's running smoothly and I know what I'm doing and I got help from somebody else and that helps a lot.

Carrie Casey (18:53)
think it's also good because it makes it a little less top down and a little bit more we can support each other sideways. The other site directors can support, it doesn't have to always be the owner or the regional manager shaking their finger and going, you didn't do this right. It can be someone else on their same, a peer saying,

Christopher Mabsas (19:01)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah

Carrie Casey (19:19)
I think I know why that family of four left on Tuesday. ⁓ I think maybe you should have handled it a little differently. And then it's, you don't feel as embarrassed if it comes to you from a peer than if it comes from you from your regional manager or your owner.

Christopher Mabsas (19:24)
Mm-hmm.

100%. 100 % that helps them to keep each other in check and then it's like, okay, the kids helping each other keep each other in check so the parents don't have to get involved. It's how it feels sometimes.

Carrie Casey (19:44)
Yeah, exactly. It's like having a well-running

Kate Woodward Young (19:48)
I

love that analogy. Chris, thank you so much for joining us. It's been a great conversation. If you have not already signed up for our podcast newsletter, go to childcareconversations.com and sign up for the newsletter. We do send one out every week, ⁓ well, twice a week with every episode. And we can't wait to see y'all later in the week.

Carrie Casey (19:48)
classroom.

Christopher Mabsas (20:16)
Thank you.