I recently enrolled my twins at the Three Oaks/Estero location with the hope their first daycare/school experience would be a good one. Based on the tour we were given with Rebecca, I had high hopes. When we enrolled our boys, we made no secret of the fact it was only for a few months and they would be moving to a new school in August. During our tour, Rebecca told us they used an app for real time reports and photos to keep us updated on what our kids were doing every day, their teacher Alexis was the best at getting children potty trained and very engaged with the kids in her class, was exceptional with getting them down for naps and liked to do messy crafts with them. 5 months later - Potty training was not consistent and therefore I was unable to be consistent at home with them and my boys are no closer to being potty trained than they were when they started at CW. I never received "real time" reports on the app and in fact was told by Maria they didn't have enough chargers for the tablets in the classrooms so the reports were not being sent due to dead batteries. I've had to throw away several items of their clothing that were ruined by the "crafts" they did at school and almost every day I would pick my children up and they would either be soaking wet from being allowed to drink from the faucet on the hand washing sink or they would have food/markers/cornstarch/paint/dirt caked to their faces, hands, and clothing as no one bothered to even wipe them down after eating or playing. As soon as we gave a 2 week notice the boys were moving to their new school all of a sudden I was told "my children didn't want to take a nap today" and they only napped 2x over a 10 day period. For two and a half year olds, this is unacceptable and unfair to the boys who were absolutely exhausted and miserable every evening over the course of their last 2 weeks at CW. My children had no problems napping up until we gave our notice. And interesting - once we pulled them out and they started at their new school, both are regularly taking naps again.
The only reason I am offering 2 stars on this review instead of 1 is because Amy made an effort to make things right for us after we spoke. While things slightly changed, others also went downhill once I asked Amy to step in and get involved. In addition, Alexis stopped communicating with us about how the day had been when we would pick them up, sometimes completely ignoring us, which made it clear she was no longer interested in caring for the boys since we were leaving. Unfortunately, our experience at the Creative World - Three Oaks location was not good and I cannot recommend to others. Maybe our mistake was thinking it was a "school" rather than just a daycare. I don't think they experience anything close to "school" until they are in the 3 year old and up classes. The food offered at CW also needs major overhaul in my opinion. Very few items were actually healthy which is disappointing. The cleanliness of the Manatee room is sub par and my children were sick almost every week for a 2 month period. We are now at Primrose and after 3 days there is a 180 degree difference. My children are happy, learning, clean, eating healthy meals, and learning to potty train (finally). read more
