Christian Day Care In Philadelphia

BOC votes to approve permit for day care

CONYERS — The Rockdale County Board of Commissioners voted 2-1 Tuesday to approve a special-use permit for a day care for TGS Christian Ministries, whose owners said they were victims of racism during the permitting process.

The commissioners’ vote was against recommendations to deny the permit from the Conyers Rockdale Planning Commission and the county’s Planning and Zoning Department.

It was the first reading and vote for the special-use permit to allow the day care at Philadelphia Baptist Church, located at 2360 Old Covington Highway, west of Conyers. A second reading and final vote are scheduled for June 28.

Outside the BOC Assembly Hall following the vote, Sarah Morton, operator of TGS Christian Ministries, along with her two daughters, cried as supporters congratulated her.

Sarah, Glenda and Shamea Morton, who are black, said they believe race played a role against them in seeking the permit since their request was first heard in March.

“It’s been a long journey,” said Glenda Morton. “Like I said, we don’t like to pull race cards and those types of things, but everything we’ve dealt with you see racism from all over Rockdale County.”

County planners said the problem is not race, but that TGS Christian Ministries had been in violation of its current special-use permit and state licenses for a school. TGS has a county special-use permit and state license to operate a school for children 5 years old and older. They have been cited three times by the state and once by the county for taking in children 4 years old and younger.

Bright From The Start, the state agency that administers the Georgia pre-K program, filed violations against TGS stemming from investigations it conducted on March 2, and 14 and May 11 that children 4 years old and younger were observed at the church.

Also, Rockdale County Code Enforcement performed an investigation on May 5 and found children under the age of 5 on site, in violation of the existing special-use permit for a school.

Sarah Morton said Tuesday those charges were unsubstantiated and that as a state agency Bright From The Start is obligated to investigate all complaints. The complaint investigation results appear on Bright From the Start’s website. In each of the three instances, Bright From The Start noted the violation followed by corrected procedures and dates when those procedures were implemented. The corrective action was to have the proper permit application filed with the county and notify parents they can only care for children 5 years old and older until there is a change in the permit process.

Straight Man (Christian McBride profile) - Canadian Voices

One night a few years ago, Christian McBride was at the Village Vanguard jazz club in New York, spectating, when it dawned on him. The busiest, most prolifically recorded bassist in contemporary jazz realized that he hadn't performed at that vaunted venue in a decade.

“No self-respecting musician living in New York can not play the Vanguard, you know,” McBride says -- although he had some pretty good excuses. Thanks to his unbeatable groove, huge sound, musicality and versatility, McBride had been called to work with not just top-tier jazz stars such as Pat Metheny, Chick Corea, Sonny Rollins and McCoy Tyner, but also with pop giants Sting, Paul Simon and Bruce Hornsby. What's more, he had been leading his own group, the Christian McBride Band, a powerful quartet that mirrored his eclecticism by combining straight-ahead jazz, rock, funk and even experimental, free playing.

At the Vanguard, McBride approached the club's grand-dame owner, Lorraine Gordon, about a gig. She said sure. But she made it very clear that McBride would have to bring in a band more in keeping with the rich tradition of jazz and of her club.

That was just fine with McBride, because he was already thinking along the same, hard-swinging lines. He soon took a blues-and-bop-based, acoustic-jazz group into the Vanguard. Since then, McBride's group picked up a name (Inside Straight), put out a record ( Kind of Brown in 2009), and has been McBride's main preoccupation when he has not been enlisted to play on other people's records. The son and great-nephew of a professional bassists, McBride grew up in Philadelphia and began playing electric bass, a gift from his mother, when he was nine years old. “I slept with it pretty much every night for two years,” McBride says. “I was lucky that I took to it pretty quickly. It felt very natural. I knew then that was something I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I found my thing.”

He began by teaching himself by ear, learning bass lines off of his mother's soul records. But when he turned 11, he began playing acoustic bass in his school's orchestra and learning basics of technique and music theory. “That's when the real work started,” he says.

As well, because his mother's brother worked for a popular radio station, McBride always had free tickets for the R 'n' B, gospel and pop acts that came through Philadelphia. “I got to see great musicians, I got to see great performers,” he says. “I was very fortunate to be exposed to all this greatness.” Still in his teens, McBride was playing with pretty great jazz players. He made his name in the early 1990s, when he was plucked out of New York's famed Juilliard School of music to play with the saxophonist Bobby Watson. “He gave me my first call-up,” McBride says. “I had no minor-league training. I went straight to the majors.

Invisible Philadelphia, community through voluntary organizations

Directory of Child Day Care Centers: Northeast

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The Praeger Handbook of Religion and Education in the United States: A-L

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