Celebree School’s unit count is up 46.2 percent since 2022, ending 2024 with 57 locations.
Celebree School founder and CEO Richard Huffman said taking care to vet “exceptional franchisees” who have the leadership skills and business acumen to grow their businesses is essential to the long-term health of the company he started in 1994.
The early childhood education concept grew sales by 62.9 percent from 2022 to 2024 as it hit $101 million. Unit growth was 46.2 percent during that time frame as it reached 57 locations.
Huffman also credited the implementation of an elaborate scoring system to assess franchisee competencies.
Richard Huffman is the CEO of Celebree School.
“We look at their experience in recruiting and hiring, coaching and developing people, inspiring others, analyzing business results, establishing direction, leading change, creating an exceptional child-parent experience and driving brand standards,” he said. “It’s helped us identify people with the right competencies and behaviors to carry our brand name.”
The Maryland-based company signed 18 new franchisees in 2024. “We’ve only been franchising for about six years, and the more years we’re in franchising the better we’ve become at really knowing who we are as a brand,” Huffman said. “We’ve learned an awful lot about establishing the systems we need in place to grow and strengthened our relationships with our franchisees with better training and communication. We’re constantly monitoring how their doing, how their feeling about things, by checking in with them regularly.”