A Better Day Academy
By 9 a.m., the doors at A Better Day Academy are closed.
For founder Tiarrah Kent, structure starts early. Children line up for Morning Circle. Preschoolers raise their hands before speaking. Homework goes home. Parents are expected to participate. Even the infant classrooms follow a curriculum.
“We’ve transitioned a six-classroom childcare center into a six-classroom school,” Kent said. “Our goal is to bridge the gap for children going into kindergarten.”
The point is not to make childcare feel stricter. Kent believes children deserve the kind of structure that lets them know they are capable and safe before they ever walk into kindergarten. That starts with the adults in the room. “When you cross over into this threshold, you are an educator,” she said. “Your role in an infant room or toddler room is just as important as a teacher in a third grade classroom.”
Kent learned how important structure could be long before she opened the academy. When she was 12 years old, her mother died, leaving behind six children. Without a house or life insurance policy, the family faced immediate uncertainty about what would happen next.
Kent remembers the possibility that her siblings could be separated or placed with different people. Her grandfather stepped in and took all six children, keeping the family together when no one else could.
The family moved from Cleveland’s inner city to Orange, an affluent suburb east of the city. Kent entered a new school district in seventh grade while her younger siblings started fresh in kindergarten. Her grandfather expanded the family’s ranch house so every child could have their own bedroom.
She was grieving and adjusting to a new environment, but in Orange, Kent saw a version of life she hadn’t been exposed to before.
“The education, the friends that I met, exposure opportunities, traveling, understanding that what I thought was so great, and I’m looking around at all of my friends and what they had, opened my eyes to something completely different. Like, oh, this is what generational wealth is, this is what legacy is,” Kent said.
Her grandfather had been one of the first Black owner-operators of McDonald’s restaurants in Cleveland. Starting at 14, Kent spent Saturdays working alongside him, sweeping floors, wiping tables, restocking supplies, and eventually taking orders and learning the business itself. “That’s what got me through college,” she said.
Before co-founding A Better Day Academy, Kent spent more than seven years as Dean of Student Engagement at Cleveland Metropolitan School District, where she worked closely with students, families, and school leaders. That background shaped the way she saw childcare: not as a place where kids waited for school to begin, but as the first place school could start.
Earlier in her career, Kent had gone into childcare centers to recruit children for kindergarten. She saw children being watched, but not prepared, and the memory stayed with her. “Some of these childcare centers just looked so disgusting,” she said. “I didn’t quite understand how people were really running their business and operating.”
She also began researching early childhood education gaps and learning how many Black and brown children entered kindergarten already behind. “I instantly kind of started getting some push,” Kent said. “I was like, how can we transform the lives of children walking into kindergarten so they’re better prepared?”
After months of looking at damaged or unsuitable buildings after the COVID-19 pandemic, Kent received a call from a realtor about a six-classroom space. She toured the building with Christa Jemison, a fellow educator who had worked with her in the school district.
“We looked at each other and said, ‘Let’s do it,’” Kent said.
Kent and Jemison established A Better Day Academy together in April 2022, bringing more than 30 years of combined experience in education to the business. After delays, startup costs, and months of preparing the space, the academy officially opened to families in April 2023.
Today, the center serves children from infancy through age 12. Families travel from neighborhoods across Greater Cleveland to attend. Some come from Shaker Heights. Others commute from Cleveland’s east side. Kent believes parents are responding to the educational structure, but also to the safety and consistency the center provides.
“I’m literally giving back to the community what I did not have,” she said.
After becoming a mother herself, Kent understood that loss in a new way. Her grandparents had passed away, and the support system that once held her family together was gone. At A Better Day Academy, she sees mothers come in carrying pressures from work, home, and everything around them. The center gives them a place where their children are safe and supported while they handle the rest of their lives.
“This place is my village,” Kent said.
Keeping that village open took more than conviction. Rent came due before the academy had children in its classrooms. Kent had signed a lease expecting to launch within months, but delays forced her to pay for the space long before the business generated income. She talks openly about missed mortgage payments and staffing struggles.
“There’s nowhere to go after this,” she said. “This has to work.”
Kent was learning that running the academy required more than a strong educational vision. She needed people who understood business, growth, and the isolation that can come with making every decision yourself.
As A Better Day Academy grew, Kent found that kind of support through ECDI’s local entrepreneurial events and networking opportunities. She attended events, built relationships with staff, and found a network of people who understood what it takes to build a business while staying rooted in the community.
For Kent, ECDI became a source of collaboration and encouragement. “They are like the biggest cheerleaders and supporters of women entrepreneurs,” Kent said. “Anytime I’ve called ECDI for a collaborative opportunity, a sponsorship opportunity, they have answered the call.”
A Better Day Academy has grown to a second location, with more than 20 staff members and enrollment that can reach 90 children during the summer months. That growth has forced her to think differently about keeping the academy’s routines and warm environment intact across more than one building.
Some days, she still questions whether she made the right decision leaving the school district behind. Some mornings begin with staff call-offs before the workday even starts.
Then the kids arrive.
“Every day I walk into work with 70 children showing up,” Kent said. “Families are showing up daily. My staff is showing up daily, where I’m feeling like, wow, maybe this really is my purpose.”
