We left Cadence three weeks ago after our daughter attended full-time for 13 months and our son…read morepart-time for one month. I want to be clear that we had many wonderful teachers during our time there. Unfortunately, the issues with administration, staffing, communication, and consistency ultimately made us uncomfortable continuing to send our children there.
Over the course of the year, there were four directors and multiple assistant changes. Our daughter had six different teachers and assistants. Children were also frequently moved between classrooms due to staffing issues, making consistency nearly impossible.
Communication from administration was consistently poor. We were not informed when both of our children's teachers left on the same day, and we frequently received little or no advance notice about staffing-related classroom closures. Families were repeatedly asked to keep their children home because of staffing shortages, sometimes with notice as late as 9:30 p.m. One evening, we were not informed that our daughter's classroom would be closed until after 6:00 p.m. We are still waiting for our refund for this day despite multiple phone calls.
On one occasion, administration sent a message stating that drop-off was being closed because there were not enough parent volunteers. Rather than taking responsibility for the staffing shortage that led to the closure, the communication placed the blame on families for not volunteering. Regardless of the circumstances, we found that approach concerning and reflective of the larger lack of accountability we experienced.
Communication regarding illness was another major concern. We became aware that staff had been informed of both a case of croup and a case of strep in our daughter's classroom, but those exposures were never communicated to us. Classes were also routinely combined at the end of the day because of staffing shortages, including after illness exposures, resulting in children from different classrooms being grouped together exposing more children.
Our experience with our son also raised serious concerns about basic attention to detail. Within his eight days attending cadence, his bathing suit was sent home with another child and took approximately three weeks and repeated follow-ups to get back. His labeled bottle was sent home with the wrong child, and a different bottle was left in his cubby.
Most concerning, his feeding plan was lost. For approximately two weeks, he was not being fed according to his plan because there was no consistent person in his classroom after his teacher left. For a childcare facility, I consider losing a child's feeding instructions and not following them for two weeks to be an extremely serious issue.
I understand that staffing challenges happen, and I do not expect perfection. I do expect transparency, consistency, and confidence that the people caring for my children know their individual needs. Unfortunately, we did not have that confidence at Cadence.
I would not recommend Cadence to families looking for a safe, consistent, attentive, and well-managed childcare environment. We ultimately decided that the lack of stability, communication, and accountability was not worth continuing.
