BEFOREI ADD REVIEW ON MEDICAL CENTER DRIVE....
**** This…read morereview is not on the Darlington location. This is for the Medical Center Dr.****
I do NOT recommend medical center drive for safety, for education, for flexibility, for professionalism, for being family friend (both biological families as well as foster care families) and definitely not for trust,
Medical center drive is a disgrace to the daycare industry especially in Wilmington NC.
The staff at this center is extremely unprofessional and is NOT to be trusted. ESPECIALLY, if you are a parent that has children in your care that (1) are foster children or kinship placement and (2) have ANY special needs of any kind, including developmental.
I am actually very worried about the families and children in their care. I recently had to abruptly dissenroll my foster children after learning there was an incident that took place with one of them that was NEVER reported to me in documentation and only verbally by one of their younger staff jokingly. He is not even 3 and was found roaming the hallways alone. He was able to open the doors and exit the classroom (which is NOT full but had way too many children for only ONE teacher.)
This school used to have a great Director and Assistant Director and I'm unsure what happened that they are no longer there. However their remaining staff who I've heard berate these two women repeatedly in front of me and other parents (who would talk to each other while putting our children's lunches away in kitchen) is deplorable. It's disgraceful behavior and SO DISRESPECTFUL.
With my children they decided to lie to me that because my child was the hall because of THEIR lacking oversight, said he broke a rule (at 2.5 mind you lol) and that caused a complete pause on his care by them. They lied about this practice as I not only confirmed by reading through the materials, sure and speaking with teachers but also with the corporate office. Vicky , who corporate sent in from Raleigh along with some others, lied not only to my face but the camera footage was conveniently 'missing' for this incident in question. The trust was ruined between me and this center and I will make certain every foster family in this region is aware of this and DSS office.
These facilities are beautiful and such a waste of a daycare service and space... in the town of WILMINGTON. It is bad enough. We have a significant and severe shortage on children finding childcare under five years old as well as aftercare. Aftercare being significantly important for those of us who work they decided to abruptly stopped busing children from their local schools to the daycare center without any notice email or anything. I was told this from Vicky when I originally moved my children to the center specifically only for the aftercare when they were to start their new public PRESCHOOL. They decided to also set up tuition for two twins sibling groups as separate tuitions, therefore double charging full tuition to the county, which I reported, and the county is now investigating. I am one step away from reporting them to the state if you go to the state website and look at the daycare reporting system, you will see the most recent from March that are being posted and it's scary. Neither of which are my children. They are other people's children incidents. This center needs to be shut down or it needs to be reevaluated to have Darlington takeover. Their Darlington staff clearly knows what they're doing and unfortunately, due to size limitations on their center. They can't offer the same services. This Center also abruptly stopped my children's speech therapy, not allowing the speech therapist back into the building without ensuring that she did the speech and OT in the classroom with all the children combined with their teacher, which is not the right level of service. I am reporting that to Medicaid. their regional Director, apparently found my concerns, humorous, according to the temporary director and there was nothing that they would do about it nor did she reach back out to me when I reached out to her, asking her for a conversation. The Center also conveniently lost my children's belongings brand new blankets and their teddy bears that they came into care when they were dropped off to me the first week of November.
I do not recommend this facility and I recommend that eyes and ears be on this center. I fear for the children remaining there and it's important that parents , I know we're desperate to find any care right now because of the shortage, rethink the strategy and find local sitters. I would not even take the risk of using this staff or center.
