By Giya Khurana
Correspondent
Just five minutes east from the College, Denow Road is home to The Learning Center, a small business childcare center that has been creating strong community ties for over 10 years.
Pennsylvania native Elizabeth (Liz) Prior started TLC in 2015. She had first rented the building until 2018 when she then bought the land.
She was able to do so with help from the “small business association at TCNJ, got a loan and [then] was able to open the business,” Prior said.
TLC expanded to another site in May 2025, which is five minutes away. Prior has now taken over operations at the childcare center at The Lawrenceville School, also known as Lawrenceville Prep, and now called The Learning Center at The Lawrenceville School.
From creating the business to the expansion, it was not always Prior's exact intent.
“I didn’t necessarily plan on opening up my own center, I just kind of fell into it,” Prior said.
She has been in this field for a while. “I knew I wanted to work with children ever since I was young but I didn’t know in what capacity,” Prior said.
After graduating from Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, Prior began working for the Division of Youth and Family Services in their adoption resource center.
“Back then there weren’t caps on caseload sizes, so I had 35 kids in foster and pre-adopted placements,” Prior said. “You’re supposed to see each child once a month, and there aren’t even that many working days.”
Starting as a caseworker, Prior decided she wanted to continue working with kids but in a different capacity.
She moved to California and started working at a preschool while also getting her certificate in early childhood from UCLA.
Prior started out as assistant director in California, until she got a director job to open Bright Horizons Children’s Center at The Water Garden in Santa Monica..
After seven years, Prior decided to move back to the east coast. She stayed as a floating director with Bright Horizons until taking on a director position at Lakeview Child Center in West Windsor, and then was able to open up the same center in Lawrenceville and Ewing.
“I wanted to have more of a permanent home,” Prior said.
TLC and its operations have become a permanent home for Prior.
“I just thought I’d be a director,” Prior added. “I didn’t know that I’d own my own but I'm so happy that I do.”
The center opening in the same town as Prior’s previous center was something that miraculously happened. A teacher at Lakeview, while working with Prior, mentioned a “for sale” sign on Denow Road. Prior had said that she “looked at a couple of other places, but this was ideal; the location was familiar and was a great set up.”
While starting the process of creating TLC, Prior remembered thinking, “it was going to be just wade into the water, you go very gently and everything, but it was not like that.”
“It was like we jumped in the deep end,” Prior added. “Luckily, a lot of families came over with me from Lakeview and we were half way full on day one, which was interesting because we didn’t have our license yet.”
The church, directly across the street, lent a hand and let Prior rent a few rooms out during the time TLC was receiving the license.
The set-up was a challenge at first. The COVID-19 pandemic, following near their five year mark, while being a first-time business owner especially of a childcare center building, was “an interesting challenge,” Prior said.
She stressed how important community is for TLC.
“We’re like a family,” Prior said. “I still have my core staff here that worked for me over at Lakeview. I’ve worked with some of these women close to 20 years.”
Prior explained that she now has had five staff members that she “had as [her] children coming through [her] centers.”
“I had them at three months old and [now] they are full-time teachers here,” she added.
Prior’s director at TLC on Denow Road is Kristen Kramley, who had also previously worked as a teacher under Prior at Lakeview.
Prior prides TLC on being family friendly in all aspects, saying that it is one of the reasons Lakeview did not work out. “My staff don’t pay for their kids to come to my childcare,” Prior said. “I work with families, when their children have things to do I try to work their shifts around what works best for their families.”
For teacher appreciation week in May, Prior chooses to celebrate her staff all month.
Lindsey Carlson-Rice, head teacher in pre-k at TLC, said she has been working with Prior for nearly 20 years; starting part-time at Lakeview when she was 19-years-old, then going full-time when Prior opened the center. Her daughter was able to join the center once it opened as well.
Carlson-Rice says she loves TLC being a local business. “It’s nice, I feel like you get to know the community here and people recognize the center,” Carlson-Rice said. “Even if I go grab [and mention TLC], people are like ‘oh I’ve heard of The Learning Center.’ I think we have a pretty good reputation in the community, so I think that’s cool.”
While speaking of challenges of her role at the center, Carlson-Rice said that they are “all good things.”
“It’s definitely a lot, it’s a lot of planning because you need to keep them organized,” Carlson-Rice said, adding that,“all of my classes have been really great. It’s hard at the end of the year when they leave because you get so attached, they’re like your second group of babies.”
Prior said that this is what makes TLC different to other childcare centers.
TLC is “definitely family friendly, more child oriented and less numbers oriented, which is certainly why we just barely break even,” Prior said. “We get to know our families and staff really, really well.”
Danica Taylor, a Wyckoff Elementary School Librarian and a parent who’s been sending her daughter to TLC for two and a half years, agrees.
After hearing from friends, “I checked their online presence and things were very positive, there was a lot that you could tell they incorporated into their program for the students to have all sorts of opportunities by attending there,” Taylor said in a phone interview.
“We’ve been so happy with everything at TLC,” Taylor added.
With the expansion of TLC with The Lawrenceville school, Prior said she hopes that it will further open up the community. She has invited families attending there to join the TLC home base for their summer camp that ends with a carnival for all kids and their families to come together.
