My review would be 5 stars, but the owner needs improvement in both the amount and quality of her communication with parents, and in my opinion, needs to increase her own personal presence at the business.
The good:
-Very Clean facility
-Friendly staff
-Lots of activities and structure for the kids
The Bad:
-Inconsistent application of their own policies
-Utterly inadequate communication
Generally, the good far outweighed the bad until the inadequate communication resulted in a major problem.
Explanation of the Bad:
There is inadequate continuity between the morning and afternoon staff. My wife would drop off the kids in the morning and I would pick them up in the afternoon, and when I would ask about the day, the entire first half of the day was like a black hole of information. Even after bringing it up with the owner, the problem never ceased. There were other minor irritations, such as the staff never, ever using our own diapers for the kids despite repeated requests to do so, and other similar things not worth listing.
The worst, though, is that the owner does not follow her own policies. The policy is to send incident reports home with the kids when there are problems with other kids. Our oldest son was enrolled for two years. I asked every single day I picked him up if there were any problems with his behavior, and almost always the answer was 'no.' On the few occasions where I was made aware of a problem, such as him playing a tackling game with other kids, I was never told of any severe incidents. When I asked whether or not we needed to be concerned about the child being removed over this, I was, EVERY SINGLE TIME, told that we did not; that this is just how boys are and that mine don't represent the worst of it anyway. Never, in the entire two years my boys were enrolled at this center, did either one of them receive an incident report. Never once did Sandy bother to take us aside and let us know of any problems, or even meet with us personally for any reason, good or bad. In fact, at least on Tuesdays and Thursdays, she was rarely even there when we dropped off the kids or picked them up. That fact makes it difficult to determine whether or not she is making decisions based upon things she has actually witnessed or not.
So you can imagine our surprise when one day, out of the blue, she showed up to inform us that the kids would have to go elsewhere because they were "too rough." We were not given a clear explanation of what "too rough" meant, how she and her staff had attempted to address the alleged problems, or why we were not informed long ago that this had reached such a consistent and pervasive level that such a drastic remedy was necessary. The two incidents that lead up to this situation was described to me by her own staff as "oh, they were just playing...". Just a few weeks prior, on one of the rare times where she was there when I was, she commented on how well they were doing.
There were two things going on. At home, the 2 year old has a habit of hugging me from behind when I am kneeling down. He did this to another kid at school and the other kid (quite understandably) freaked out because he he was being choked. Clearly, we can't have kids choking each other for fun or otherwise, so I have no issue with the need to address the behavior. The 4-year old was pushing another child, and we were never informed it was happening. That's unacceptable, not just for us, but for the other child involved. He told us other kids were pushing him. The problem is two-fold: they are being paid pretty dang good money to correct behavior when the kids are under their care, and we were told this wasn't a serious matter. I asked specifically if this should have required an incident report, and they said NO!
My kids aren't perfect. I'm not defending their behavior, as much as I even am aware of what it actually was. The can play hard, but in our care, they generally do as they are told as much as one can expect 2 and 4-year-olds to do. One does need to correct them from time to time. In my conversations with staff, this was generally the case when they were at the school as well. We asked other teachers there subsequent to Sandy's decision, and every one we spoke with expressed surprise that she had done it, and told us our kids were no better or worse than any of the others that were in their care. It feels like something is being left out of what we were told.
They did give us a list of other places, which I appreciate. It doesn't really make up for the fact that, because of their unwillingness to even attempt to work with us, I'm having to tear the oldest away from friends he's made and an environment he is comfortable with.
This facility may work for you, just keep in mind that they are inconsistent with how they apply their policies. read more
