I would not trust this place to care for my children.
Don't get me wrong- there are (were?) some great teachers here. But management and ownership leaves a lot to be desired. It's death by 1000 cuts - no one offense is so bad that you would want to get your kid out of there, but the cumulative effect can be overwhelming.
Let's start with the front office. Nice enough people, for sure. However, they are extremely disorganized. Time and time again they would take notes from me or my wife which would be lost in a sea of food wrappers and other loose papers on their desk - that led to a lot of frustration on a weekly basis. The office was often left unattended during the day because the staff had to cover for teacher/aide breaks. Other times, aides and random children are inside the office which made it difficult to communicate with the office staff effectively.
The food they serve the children is passable, but it's not clear that they follow CACFP, a nutritional standard that all daycare centers in the country are supposed to follow if they serve your children food. For example, I'm pretty sure that tomato sauce is considered a vegetable on the menu at Banners which is a no-no. If you do end up enrolling your child here, be sure to send some of your own food in, and maybe check to see if the menu is actually certified by the USDA like it's supposed to be.
We were in the infant rooms for our time here. At the end of the day, babies tend to get moved around to different rooms a little bit so rooms can be cleaned and the center can maintain an appropriate child/teacher ratio. That in and of itself is fine, but what I found many times was that no one would know where any of my child's stuff was (car seat, cooler bag, jacket, etc). This made pick up something of a chore, as I ended up having to go room to room to find things that were not where I left them. It's not exactly a great way to end your day, and many of the aides agreed wholeheartedly with me! Apparently this is a common issue with other parents in these rooms.
Beware leaving breastmilk in the freezer here for any length of time. We lost several bags one weekend because the freezer "defrosted" (i.e., someone left the freezer door open by accident). On another occasion I picked my child up at the end of the day and I found a freezer door wide open. I closed it and alerted the front office, but this isn't something you should have to worry about as a parent. Breastmilk is precious and should be treated as such!
Safety wise, I'm not crazy about how they have things set up in the infant rooms. Each room has hard laminate floors with a plush rug that simply doesn't cover enough of the floor for children who are just learning how to sit up, crawl, and walk. I witnessed a number of close calls just with my own kid who fell backwards trying to stand up. Walking around I also noticed that one of the glass doors to the playground had duct tape covering a large crack. It remained like that for some time, which is pretty unsafe. I'm reasonably sure it was like that when we left, but it's possible that it's been fixed by now.
We were lucky enough to have some excellent teachers/aides who really cared for our child, so I was saddened to learn that most of them are no longer with the center. High turnover is a big problem judging by other reviews I've read about this place, and I can only imagine that it comes down to management and ownership. Privately, I and other parents with kids at Banners have expressed concerns about how the center is run, as we've overheard the owner speaking with employees in a manner that made us fairly uncomfortable. This just isn't a place that gives you a very warm and fuzzy feeling, and that's really a shame. read more