This review is for the toddler room, but I imagine that many of the issues that bugged me are also present in the other classes. I had two kids in their toddler room for 6 months, and then I pulled them out after being fed up. Now, after putting my kids in a different daycare I can see clearly how bad it was at Kindercare, I am still dealing with guilt that I didn't I pull them out sooner. Here is the good and the bad I experienced at this center.
Good:
- The outdoor space is big and beautiful with tons of toys to play with.
- Teachers were really good at changing diapers quickly and my kids never got diaper rashes while there.
- The front desk was always welcoming and greeted us with a smile.
- There was always someone picking up the phone and they were always open to go check on your kid right away if you asked them.
- They are not cheap but they have a good discount for intel or ohsu employees and they offer sibling discounts too.
- They use a pretty nice app that informs you of the diaper changes, food consumption and photos shared. You can also message teachers and director via this app.
- They have excellent hours that secure care for your little one even when you have a long day at work.
Bad:
- Generally the teachers were not engaging or showing much interest or affection to the kids. They were mostly standing around passively and often talking amongst themselves instead of the children. Sometimes kids would be wailing in the corner and no one would pay any attention to them. I witnessed this regardless of the time that I stopped by to pick up kids, or drop off anything for them.
- The toddler classrooms are tiny! They have sectioned a big room into 3 little rooms that probably barely meet the min square footage per child. The rooms are always crowded and in a disarray with toys laying everywhere. They don't teach the kids to clean up and there were always (dirty) toys spread around on the floor that you would step on as you dropped off and picked up your kids.
- the food is DISGUSTING. Don't be fooled by the menus they may show you. It may look good on paper, but first of all, the food served almost never matches what is printed on the menu for that day. "Fresh fruit" comes out of a can! Cheese and meat is processed. Bread is stale and white. Nothing is truly cooked there. It's all just thawed and/or warmed. I wouldn't eat any of that myself.
- The kids were taken to play outdoors twice a day during summer, but even though we had a very mild fall and winter, but they did not take the kids out a single day from Oct to Feb. And after parents called to complain they took them out only occasionally when the weather was very nice. Their excuse was that some kids do not have warm clothes?! They kept the kids in the tiny tiny classrooms crawling around all day, and my boys would get horribly sick every other week.
- They constantly move the kids around among toddler classes. We would always drop off our kids around the same time, within the allowed drop off time and around breakfast time and in their designated classrooms, but they would already be at capacity in that room and have to move some of the kids out to accommodate our kids. Sometimes they would take kids that were in the middle of eating their breakfast and have them walk to another room. It was always chaos and a lot of teacher/student switching once we arrived.
- I had a kid that drooled a lot and I would give them extra bibs so they could change them out during the day, but despite asking a couple of times and sometimes even messaging about it they would forget and on his drooly days my kid would often go home in a wet shirt (with dry and clean bibs sitting in his cubby).
-They had serious staffing issues and had to close their classrooms unannounced several days during fall and winter! Once they emailed us at 7am that they could only take 8 more toddlers that day, and first come first serve! Other days they would ask us to pick up our kids earlier due to staff being out.
- There were also a lot of little less important, but annoying, things as well such as not removing the kids shoes for nap time, not being stocked with age-appropriate educational toys like legos, building blocks etc., not allowing food from home, they would play super loud music non stop in the evening, they tossed all the water bottles in a cubby all week and never changed the water or cleaned the bottles until parents pick them up at the end of week and clean them, they would not provide water to the kids during the day only at specific times (my kids were sooo thirsty when we picked them up because they couldn't speak and ask for water or they did and were ignored).
All in all, while there are a few positives, I would never recommend this place to anyone who wants the best for their child. I have even heard teachers working at that center discouraging parents from putting their children there! That should be telling enough... read more