If your child is a perfect little angel, you should have no problem enrolling them in this…read more"learning center" that is headed up by an old woman who should have been let go from her position 20 years ago.
But, if you have a child like mine, who tried his best to make all the right choices everyday, but was not always successful, just know the director will not make big accommodations for your child, but she will make sure your tuition check gets cashed every week.
We were enrolled in this Kindercare location for approximately 6 months before we removed him. He was 4 and a half when he started, and we paid the full-time tuition cost, plus the full-time cost of tuition for his infant sister. The infant room teachers were great, of course. But the transition with rest of the staff did not come easy. Our son's teacher could not physically keep up with any of the kids. She was grossly overweight with bad knees. She was sitting and yelling at the children most of the time when we saw her.
The director is also an old woman who probably should've retired years ago. She has a very troubled adult son, and she had no problem sharing details about his life with us, seemingly comparing our son to her own.
As the months dragged on, we had meetings with her, and I would get phone calls at least 2 or 3 times a week because this seemingly "experienced" teaching staff could not handle my child's meltdowns. Like they've never had a child meltdown before? They couldn't have put him in a safe spot by himself until he cooled down? It got to the point where the director told me what time I needed to drop him off in the morning because she had to have certain teachers available. I didn't realize this director was my new boss to dictate my work schedule as well. But they also told me on certain days I would need to pick him up if they were having an inspection and they did not want him there. But they still had no problem collecting my check every week, with no payment adjustment if I did need to pick him up early for their own personal reasons.
Near the end of our 6 months it felt like no one was trying to include him in any activities with the rest of the kids anymore. He would tell us he was by himself all day, or next to the large, loud teacher most of the time. Most of his behavior issues boiled down how tired he got during the day and he would cry and yell in frustration over small things, and he kicked the chairs in the classroom. According to the director, this behavior was enough for two "teachers" to allegedly quit because of my 4 year old.
The cherry on top from his teacher was the day of VPK graduation, and she told me he had a rough day. So much so, she wasn't sure that he should even be allowed to join the ceremony with the rest of his classmates. That took me by such surprise, the class practiced their ceremony, they had robes, everything, and this woman told me a few hours before that she didn't think he should be allowed to join in. What was supposed to be a happy day, made me so upset leading up to when we chose to come anyway.
But the nail in the coffin came during the summer session when the director told us in an in-person conversation that she was "waiting for all the kids in his class to turn 5 before they went on a field trip." Great, we thought - he will love to go on his first field trip. She even sent out a reminder in the app of the "vpk field trip." The day before the field trip she told us our son would not be allowed to go, even though we consented to it. She did not trust him on a bus. He was singled out for her own personal fears of what he "might" do to jeopardize the safety of others. She had no real way of knowing that our child or any other child would obey basic safety rules, but those kids were allowed to go.
When I finally expressed all of my frustrations with her through email, that same afternoon she decided to embarrass herself and my family by yelling at us (with other families around) in the school parking lot. She essentially told us what bad parents we are and if he did go on the field trip and something did happen, she would call the Department of Children and Families. This behavior by her was enough to send me over the edge to report her to her higher management and dis -enroll our kids as soon as possible.
I'm shocked she's still there. She started sweet, but deep down she is not a good person to families that might have it a little tougher than some. Of all people, she should have understood.
