I held off writing a review for this daycare for a while, because I wanted to get some distance…read morefrom the situation. Also, my child recently started at a new daycare, so I'm able to compare services and I now realize there were a lot of issues with this place.
My child was 3 months old when he started. Terri was very reassuring and I felt like she would be a great child care provider. Unfortunately, she seems overwhelmed by the work of owning and operating. If I were trusting just her and the assistant director to watch my child, it would have been fine. But the staff they hired and allowed to watch children were not up to the same standard.
After just a few weeks there, my child was injured by another child. It's daycare, kids can be wild - I expected an issue like this. But the communication was poor. First, I was not called despite the incident occurring hours before pick up. Next, I was told that my child 'got into a fight.' I'm sorry - he's three months old. An older child (20 months) was allowed near him and hit my child in the face. That is not a fight.
Next, I was not given any documentation about the incident. When I asked for something, I was given the discipline sheet for the other child (containing all of his private information and nothing about my own child).
I returned my child to the center and just two days later, at pick up, I was told again that my child was injured by the same child. They had done nothing to protect my child. My child had a massive bruise on his head, a welt on his cheek and a bloody lip.
At this point, I pulled my child from the center. I also called a hotline to Children's Division. During their investigation of the center, I was informed that many of the staff members did not have background checks and were not certified in the training required of care givers. There were many other issues found at the school, all of which can be found on the MO Dept of Health and Human Services website. I suggest that you read all of these reports for yourself prior to enrolling your child here.
It has been almost a year since my child was enrolled here, and I am just now becoming comfortable allowing my child back to a care facility. Now that I've started at a new school, I'm realizing how poor the communication was at Montessori Day School of BS. His daily sheet was often left blank, or with information missing. The staff that I left my child with seemed to change every day, and there were constantly new faces.
Finally, I would especially caution anyone who breast feeds against this facility. My milk was often left in the fridge and he was given the backup formula I provided instead. One of the employees even told me to not leave any extra, as she believed other staff members were throwing them away. I was also told often that they felt my child had GI issues because his poops looked different than the formula fed babies. My child was the only one receiving breast milk and it seemed the staff had no protocol with how to handle the receiving, storage and giving of the milk. One day, I dropped off a full fridge safe bag of milk and when I picked him up, that milk had been sitting in the bag all day and was never moved to the fridge or given to my child. It had to be thrown out.
I believe that this location has a much better preschool and older toddler program, but the infant room is not up to the same standard.
Edit: after posting this, Terri reached out under the pretense of working things out. Instead, Terri repeatedly claimed the review had inaccuracies but could only point out that the school does not have cameras. I have edited this portion out of my original review. But I will say, an employee did state cameras existed. I believe this further proves employees are uneducated and have poor communication.
No other inaccuracies could be identified by Terri. She had complaints about my 'tone.'
I will repeat that I believe Terri would be a wonderful caregiver. But her employees do not meet the same standard. I expect she will reply to this review attempting to discredit my experiences. Everything above is true and accurate, as verified by Terri herself.
