About Us

Our Facility

Garden Oaks Early Learning Center is a ministry of Garden Oaks Baptist Church and is located within the church's facility. We are an all-day Child Care Center with classrooms for every 6 months of development. We currently service infants through pre-kindergarten students. We are open daily from 7am until 6pm, Monday through Friday. We value the quality of care that we give over quantity of attendance in our Early Learning Center. We carefully vet each of our staff members to ensure they have a heart for serving God, a deep love for children, and a desire to see their students grow developmentally and educationally. Each staff member is held to our Employee Standard of Excellence and joyfully adheres to all Texas State Minimum Standards for Child-Care Centers. Our teacher to child ratios are carefully managed and kept lower than state minimum standards require. We staff two full time teachers for every class and have highly skilled and qualified floating teachers that rotate to where extra hands are needed. All staff that work in the facility both on the church and ELC side have been fully background checked and fingerprinted to ensure a safe and healthy environment for our students. All teachers hold a food handlers licenses, at least 60 clock hours of pre-classroom training in Early Childhood Development and Safety, as well as an up to date certification for CPR/First Aid/AED. Our purpose in holding these standards is to serve the families of our community well by providing the safest and healthiest environment for their children.

Our Curriculum

Our center utilizes the award-winning Abeka curriculum as our academic guide. Abeka’s preschool curriculum features a traditional approach to teaching and learning, cross-subject integration, spiral review, and plenty of hands-on activities. Abeka is Christian faith-based, teaching values and principles of the Christian faith while not compromising on developmentally appropriate learning. In addition to the Abkea curriculum our teachers use hands-on centers throughout their classrooms, a fun and hands-on “circle time” as well as music and art to educate.

Our contract partners, Soccer Shots and Tippi Toes Dance also offer classes once a week to our students ages two years old and up. For more information on these extra-curricular classes, please contact our front office.

Meet the Director!

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Welcome to Garden Oaks Early Learning Center!

My name is Christine (Christy) Purvis and I am so thankful you have taken the time to look into our Center. Whether you have been a family that has been with us for years, or you are just popping in to check out what we offer, you are welcome here. Myself, my husband Jon, and our four children: Gracelyn (9), Azariah (7), Aria (7) and Zion (3) relocated from Columbia, South Carolina to Houston in February, 2021. Jon is the Lead Pastor here at Garden Oaks Baptist and it is such an honor to work alongside him as a team, serving the amazing community of Garden Oaks. While I am new to Texas, I am not new to the role of providing faith-based, safe and quality educational care for children. I am a Nationally Certified Early Education Director and have served as a Children’s Ministries Director for 10 years prior to our relocation. While in that role in Columbia, I created a Child Development Center from the ground up servicing over 250 students while leading 40+ staff members. In all my years of experience I have realized that my heart and passion is to create an environment where staff, families, and children feel valued, cared for, and deeply loved. I desire to create a peace-of-mind for parents while they are at work that their child is well taken care of and being encouraged to grow into the person God has created them to be. Here at Garden Oaks Early Learning Center my top priority will be to recognize your child’s individual needs, while guiding my staff to creating a safe, educationally-stimulating, and God-centered program. I always have an open door policy and welcome your questions, concerns, or inquiries at any time. I love to build relationships with both the students and their parents and foster good communication between parent and teachers to optimize care. Again, I appreciate your interest in Garden Oaks and look forward to speaking with you soon."

- Christy Purvis ELC Director

Meet the Teachers!

We pride ourselves in our carefully chosen teachers & staff. With a multitude of training hours and education, and a love for children, our teachers are truly a step above the rest. Click on the images below to learn more about each of our staff members and how they impact the lives around them. All of our highly-qualified teachers are CPR & First Aid certified, thoroughly background checked, finger-printed, and safety certified to maintain an atmosphere of safety and security.