Overall, I have been satisfied with the Center. My little one has been attending for over four years. The teacher in the four year old room is phenomenal. Over the years there has been a lot of turnover in both the teachers and the directors. At one point the teachers in the school age room acted like a drill sergeant. It seems like once there is a finally a good team put in place at the director level, someone gets reassigned to a different center and we as parents are at ground zero again. On another negative. They will nickel and dime you to death! For example. For Christmas this year the Center was closed on Monday and Tuesday. My regular rate for the week is $87. However, because my child is school age and would attend "out of the norm" we would have been charged an additional $16 per day for any days attended that week. Luckily, I was able to use a vacation week for the week. Each family is allotted one vacation week per year. This week, the Center closes at 2:30 today for New Year's Eve, and is closed tomorrow for New's Day. Our account is charged $16 extra for today plus our normal $87. This happens on other holidays as well. If the Center is going to close on days during the week, I do not feel they should charge extra for the other days. Not to mention there are two holidays the Center closes, I believe one is President's Day and they use it as a "Staff Learning Day". Okay, this is a DAYCARE! Perhaps, learning should be done after hours or weekends, not everyone has 12 holidays per year. read more

1. Teacher turnaround and staff turnaround is high and very common. Every now and then you get a teacher who sticks around but other than the few, the rest is rotating door. Unsettling is the office staff (higher ups like center directors and asst. directors) are also fleeting. It makes you question management and their lack of ability to host happy and worthwhile employees. 2. I feel like I was constantly nickel and dimed to death. An enrollment fee for the following year?! ($75 per kid) But my kid is already a PAYING customer. While I understand needing to get money for other stuff to run a business, I personally don't feel like 75 bucks a kid when you already pay tuition weekly is right. Oh, your kid is out of school an extra hour early, better charge your account for it. I just always felt like they kept wanting something from me or trying to find another way to charge me for something. 3. While I am not a strongly religious person and did not pick the daycare for that reason, I feel if others are looking to this daycare for that purpose this is NOT the place for you. In my personal opinion the upper management (CEO and/or board) doesn't function off of "Christian values". I get a shady vibe, take that however you please. In conclusion, I have paid Appletree for the past 4 years to watch my children, at multiple centers, for multiple ages. Each year got progressively worse, and each issue above got even more annoying. This year when asked to pay yet another enrollment fee, I opted out. I feel the amount of money i spend is not worth the care my children receive and I'm also not impressed with the way I am treated as a loyal paying parent. After interactions with management I have completely abandoned any want/or need to send my children back, ever. Did I encounter horrible childcare practices...no. Is the cost decent....yea its not the highest cost in the area. Would I recommend it to others...no. read more

My daughter has been going to the Greenbrier location since she was 3 months old and is now a little over 9 months. At first things were okay and my daughter really seemed to connect with her teachers and the Director, Ms. Taffy. Until about 2 months ago, my only complaint was that the teachers where not wearing booties on their shoes where the babies would crawl around and put their hands in their mouths. I spoke to the director and she talked to the teachers but they still weren't as consistent as I would have liked. My daughter wasn't yet crawling so I was waiting it out to see if it would improve but it didn't. Recently, there has been some major turn over especially in the infant room. All 4 of my daughter's teachers are gone or planning on leaving. The old Assistant Director and Executive Director, whom I loved is also gone and replaced with a not so friendly and personable lady. We were not notified about any changes to staff (except the lead director) and would find out that there was a new teacher when I picked her up or dropped her off. The teachers would give me a heads up that it was their last week but received no correspondence from the new Director. When I picked up my daughter yesterday there was a new teacher again. Of course she didn't know who I was or which child was mine so she asked me and I pointed to my daughter and she handed her right over. I could have been anyone! Very scary! I also submitted a 2 week notice to the Director that my daughter was leaving and I wasn't asked why or told that she was going to missed....nothing. Just a "thank you". I can't speak for the other classes but if you plan on enrolling your infant, I suggest you look elsewhere. High turnover in 6 months is a big red flag and the tone and attitude of a director is very important to staff moral and peace of mind for the parents. read more

Worst experience preschool hunting. The director was extremely rude. The first thing she said to me was not hello, but told me about their prices. One little girl came in her office, younger than 2 as teacher had concern child was ill and director had very negative attitude and no care for the child and discounted the teachers concern. The teachers were rude to me as well, I felt I was disrupting their day by being there. It was dirty. This place is very much religion based--they ask your kids if they went to church this weekend. My tour wasn't nearly over but I was so uncomfortable I left crying! I would give this rating a negative 5 if that was an option. read more

Absolutely appalled at the ridiculous situation I've been dealing with over the past week. My daughters and I recently moved to Chesapeake. I took off work on Friday morning to choose a facility that could provide after-school care for my children. I received a referral to check out Apple Tree from a local "Mom's" community Facebook page. We stopped in for a tour given by the director Mike. He discussed security, meals, bus route, schedule, holidays, and payment. They told me there were only a few spots left which put pressure on me to reserve them so I submitted $200 for the annual registration fees. After returning home that evening, I was checking out their Facebook page and realized they're a Christian daycare center. I thought to myself,  "Why didn't he (Mike) mention this during my tour"?! It was extremely odd to me that such a significant fact about the school was not discussed. I have nothing against Christians and the facility seemed nice and clean BUT our religion isn't Christianity. Had Mike mentioned that, I wouldn't have submitted the fee and moved on to touring other facilities. Apple Tree is closed on the weekends so I called first thing Monday morning for a refund. After waiting a few days for a follow up, I made a call to their Corporate office. I waited on hold for 20 minutes and was told by the COO, Jeremy that they're not refunding me because "it's their policy". Really?! My kids are not attending the school, I didn't fully register them, didn't submit shot records or any other documentation needed and asked for a refund within 24 business hours.. There was no reason for them to take my money. I'm a single mom of 3 kids, $200 is a lot to us. This is a very immoral and money hungry business, sad! Shame on you Apple Tree for taking advantage of me. read more

I would steer clear of this daycare ! We had he worst experience and after only a month had to pull my daughter out because of how bad she was being treated. My daughter started here one month before she turned 4 and during the tour and on her "free trial day" she was with the 4 year olds. We met the teacher, were told that would be in her class, and allowed her to stay for 4 hours to see how she did. Her teacher was rude and seemed like she couldn't be bothered with questions, however after the free trial day my daughter seemed genuinely happy, so we decided to go ahead and sign up. It is expensive and with that price tag, I had high expectations. It's also labeled as a Christian daycare, so I had even higher expectations, and expected my daughter to be treated just as she is treated in our church. Wrong ! After her first day I got a call stating that she was not yet 4 and would have to continue to rest of the year in the 3 year olds class, even though she was 3 1/2 weeks away from being 4. Not very convenient , and they just uprooted her from her class and the teacher she had already spent a day with and got to know and moved her to a different teachers class. Her new teacher seemed nice, however I had very few interactions with her, and more with the administrator and teachers assistant. My daughter had a very hard time adjusting to the new teacher, she had separation anxiety and the teachers assistant would get upset and tell my daughter to stop crying, and even told me to "leave because I was making the process worse" when all I was doing was praying with my daughter before leaving , it is a routine we had, we always pray before going separate ways. One of the ladies who helps bring them food called my daughter a "cry baby" to her face. Then of course after bringing it to their attention, the administrator denied this being true. Every day or every other day my daughter would come home hurt. She always had a bandaid or would be bleeding, and I was never called. I would arrive and she would tell me I got a boo boo today and no word from the teacher as to what happened. Luckily my daughter is very vocal and communicates everything to us! It always came down to another student hurting her and playing too rough. The teachers didn't seem to have any control over the students and from what I observed they didn't pay too close of attention in the first place. Another incident, I got a call from the school stating I had to go pick up my daughter because she had had an accident, mind you she has been potty trained since a week before turning 2 and had NEVER had accidents before. I went to pick her up and the first thing my daughter tells me is "I asked my teacher over and over to take me to the bathroom and she told me to stop talking" . Again, my daughter isn't one to just talk, she has great memory and would tell me every single thing that happened each day, I know she wasn't lying about any of this. She also came home once with bruises on her hips and really bad scrapes and cuts on her hands, was complaining about hip pain to the point I had to take her to the doctor. Turns out a boy had pushed her, and then proceeded to step on her back and stomp on her hands, a story she told me, which her teacher also said admitted to being true. What on earth was going on for you to have allowed this to happen? Not only happen but you observed it, because you agreed this was what indeed happened, and then not do anything about it other than slap some big bandage on her hands because she had no skin on her knuckles. This is when her doctor suggested we do more research on the school and ensure she wasn't being mistreated by the teachers, hearing that just made me sick, so we ultimately decided to pull her out. We had issues with our refund and fast forward to now 6 months later, we're barely getting our refund. I may just be a super overprotective mother, but when I leave my daughter in the care of someone else, especially with a price tag like theirs, I have high expectations! I would never want anyone's child to experience what my daughter had to go through. read more

If I could give this place no stars, I would. Avoid this place if at all possible!!! Because of their poor planning and false information, I will miss my 3 year old's Christmas performance!!!! I will miss this priceless milestone in my daughter's life!!!! I asked the office in November for the performance schedule for Christmas and gave my job a month's notice so I could request off. (I work in another state). 24 hours before the performance date, they cancelled and rescheduled for a date I was working!!! I spent over 4 hours trying to get them to reschedule for a date I was not working, but they refused. There was a date that they could have switched with another Appletree school. I even offered to send out emails. But they said they would not inconvenience 80 people for one parent. (They just notified the other parents of the date 3 hours prior to our conversation, so it would have been an easy rescheduling info email). Even though it was their mistake, they made no efforts to try to correct it. And they blamed me for talking to the wrong person in the office back in November. I have 4 kids and have experienced daycare facilities in different states. I have never experienced a more disorganized, dysfunctional establishment ever!! read more