As a kid, she hid beside a Philly day care to await help. Now, she owns it.
"I feel like my trauma turned into a triumph," said Shahira Davis.
Meet Shahira Davis, owner of Little Scholars of the Future Learning Academy in Frankford.
• Full circle: “Something I ran away from for so many years is now in my backyard. I always say that my future is in the front, but my past is in the back.”
• No kidding: “Kids pick up on energy. Kids are like dogs, they can smell fear. They can smell anything on you.”
Eight days after her grandfather died last year, Shahira Davis found herself driving around Philly, trying to get her thoughts together, but unable to stop the tears.
Somewhere along the way, she made a wrong turn and wound up in Frankford, a section of the city she hadn’t been to since she lived in a group placement home there as a kid.
“I hadn’t been back in years,” Davis, 27, said. “I had no reason to.”
She pulled over on Frankford Avenue to check her GPS, and when she wiped her tears and looked up, Davis saw the shell of a red phone booth on the corner — the same phone booth she used to call her grandpa for help the night she ran away from the group home.
“It’s 2022, phone booths don’t exist no more, and then it started coming back to me,” Davis said. “It took over and I was crying even harder.”
Alone in her car, Davis began talking aloud to her grandfather.
“What are you trying to tell me? Why am I back at this phone booth?”
She turned her head. Two doors down, there was a “FOR RENT” sign on a day care. It was the day care she hid next to until her grandfather came to pick her up the night she ran away.
Within weeks, Davis signed a lease on the building and on Sept. 11, 2021, she opened her Little Scholars of the Future Learning Academy.
“I always say my grandpop went to heaven and made things happen for me,” she said.
Davis was born and raised in North Philly with both parents active in her life, but she spent a lot of time with her paternal grandparents, particularly her “grandpop,” Wesley Smith, who was her best friend.
“The conversations you’d have with your girlfriend, I had with my grandpop,” she said.
Davis doesn’t want to publicly disclose what led her into placement at 14, but it wasn’t due to abuse, neglect, or illegal behavior, she said.
“I just haven’t found it in me to share the story yet,” she said.
Davis was placed through Philadelphia Family Court in a group home with about 20 girls inside the former convent at St. Joachim Roman Catholic Church on Church Street (which is directly behind her day care). Today, the convent, now called the Padre Pio Friary, is home to Capuchin Franciscan friars.
For about seven months, Davis stayed in the group home and walked to and from Frankford High every day, hoping her classmates wouldn’t see where she lived. Once, the woman who owned the day care she now owns saw her and offered a job, but Davis was too embarrassed by where she lived to accept it.
Despite receiving weekend passes to visit family, Davis said placement was lonely and isolating.
“I wasn’t abused or beat up, but mentally, that is not a place for nobody to be,” she said.
With no release date in sight and overcome by the fear she’d be sent to an out-of-state facility, as some other girls were, one night Davis walked out of the front door of the building and never looked back.
“I left all my stuff there,” she said. “I had nothing and I’m on Frankford Avenue at night.”
She made a call at the red phone booth nearby, then hid in the shadows of the day care, waiting for her grandpa to pick her up.
When he arrived, he promised Davis she’d never go back to placement again. And she never did.
Davis moved in with her paternal aunt and transferred to el Centro de Estudiantes, an alternative, Big Picture high school. At the time, the school was located in Kensington, but Davis soon learned that the school moved to Frankford — directly across the street from where she’d been in placement.
“They’ve backed my center in an amazing way and I offer childcare for students there at a discounted rate,” she said of her alma mater.
After graduating in 2012, Davis worked as a hairstylist and opened her own North Philly salon, Styles by Shai, which she ran until 2019.
When considering her next career, Davis, a mother of two kids, ages 5 and 8, thought of how much she loves children and how other parents at her kids’ day care in North Philly always told her she should work there.
On April 21, 2021, Davis finished her Child Development Associate certification at the Community College of Philadelphia. Four days later, her grandfather died from prostate cancer, with her by his side.
“I couldn’t believe my whole world just stopped,” Davis said. “I didn’t have no ambition for nothing, I just knew my kids still needed to eat and I needed to pay my bills.”
She found herself in front of the day care with the for-rent sign two weeks later, a coincidence she feels her grandfather had a hand in from above.
But opening her Little Scholars of the Future Learning Academy wasn’t easy. It took Davis months of renovation and money she didn’t have.
“To this day, I still can’t tell you how I did it. People I know from social media were willing to give me everything, from trash bags to Lysol,” she said.
Currently, Davis has 10 students, ages 2 to 5, with room for more. She’s licensed for kids ages 6 weeks to 12 years, and takes older children during summers and before and after school.
She considers her business more than just a childcare center — it’s a learning academy where kids wear uniforms, take Spanish and sign language lessons, and learn music and culinary skills.
As the one-year anniversary of Little Scholars of the Future approaches, Davis is proud to be making a difference in the very neighborhood she once ran away from.
“I feel like my trauma turned into a triumph,” she said.
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