I'm aware this may merely look like a rant and I can assure you it is not. I am writing this as we felt it necessary to warn other parents.
The experience our children had at the YMCA Science Hall location was nothing short of shocking. There was absolutely no safety for any of the children as the doors were propped open every morning, and ID's not checked upon pick up. out of 3 weeks we saw an actual adult on site in the mornings no more than 4 times. Our children told us about parents that had a verbal altercation during one drop off where the "staff" of high school children just let 2 adults hurl obscenities at each other in front of a room full of children without so much as asking them to step outside.
We were also told that there was a " no device" policy which was one of the things we were quite happy about. Not only was this not the case for the children, but the "staff" were buried in their devices for the majority of the day, and the children freely sharing inappropriate videos and video games.
The program itself was convoluted at best, as several of the activities that got the kids excited were canceled on the day of with no notice. Most of the days were spent sitting in either the auditorium or cafeteria for hours on end.
The most disturbing incident was when our daughter was injured by another student in an accident on a swing set. We only found out after she got in the car and I noticed that her face was swollen. The "staff's" first aid consisted of giving her a cold sponge and sending her back to the playground. No attempts were made to contact us, or even inform us of the incident when we picked up the kids. When we reached out to Alexis, the director of the program via email (as there is no phone number to call), asking for a call asap to discuss this, her vacation responder instructed us to email another staff member, which we did. Three days later we still had not heard from anyone. They finally emailed back and were unfazed at best, until we sent the pictures of our daughters extremely swollen face which got worse enough the following day to warrant a doctors visit. Then Alexis's fill-in actually made the phone call we requested, a full 5 days after the incident, she attempted to downplay the Incident that she was not only not present for, but also woefully misinformed of. She claimed she'd look into it and call us back. This never happened. Don't get me wrong, accidents happen, but a program designed to educate and care for children that has NO supervision other than other children, does not take safety seriously, disappoints the children repeatedly, and couldn't care less when children are injured is not a program that ANY parent should subject their children to and needs to be examined by the appropriate authorities before something goes seriously wrong. read more
