I have to preface this by saying, we have older children who were in daycare, so we know how great some facilities and management can be. Unfortunately, this is not one of them from what we have experienced.
Before we signed our child up for care, the owner Azar seemed welcoming at their open house, made us feel comfortable, and convinced us she had an "open door policy". The facilities aren't the greatest (i.e., the entrance to the infant room is in a partition for a bigger room - the "gym", so it's flimsy, and the daycare is connected to a church), but we were willing to overlook that because of a personal recommendation, and the positive reviews online.
There was a smooth phase with this daycare that was very short lived. Over time, little things - such as basic necessities for our infant, now toddler (i.e., no shoes or hat on when it's freezing outside, coming home in filthy clothes though he has extra clothes there, coming home in other kids' clothes, even giving water to our baby before asking if it was okay) - would be missed. He also would come home with unexplained scratches or marks. We would bring up these issues to the director Kellie, and her response would be defensive and dismissive, saying, "staff would have noticed", and there is never any accountability when these things clearly happened at the daycare. More often than not, a response would not be given, and our inquiries would be completely ignored. They seemed like they forgot about our child after he was enrolled there for a little while.
The director Kellie suggested a meeting to try to work together and address our concerns. We were open to it. The meeting was supposed to just be between us parents and the director. When we showed up, the owner Azar was there, likely to ambush us. The meeting initially seemed to go fairly well until the owner interjected and started going on a tangent, talking about how they have "been open for 31 years and have a good reputation". It was a total deflection of what the matter was at hand; concerns regarding care for our child. She talked about how HER children went to the daycare and are now doing well (side note: they are now adults and of course she has her own children's best interest as their mother). The owner and the director did not like that we were questioning a mark and scratch on our child's face that we saw at pickup time (so it definitely didn't happen at home). Instead of trying to look into the matter and come to a resolution, they lacked professionalism, empathy, and let their emotions get the best of them. They were more concerned about their feelings being affected by us questioning what happened to our child, not what was really important; the well-being of our child. As adults, this is not something to model to the children in their care. They did not give us a chance to provide input; Azar kept interrupting us, raising her voice, talking about herself and how proud she was of the staff at the center. Azar basically said, we are not allowed to be frustrated, and if we can't move past the things they did wrong, maybe we should consider if Kids Academy is the place for our child. She was condescending and gave an ultimatum, not an attempt to understand where we were coming from. She harps on and on about their "reputation" (but just because a place has been open for 31 years, does not mean it is without shortcomings or is run well). We respectfully ended the meeting, since she was disrespectfully talking over us and was not interested in hearing what we had to say. She had her own agenda.
If the owner feels okay raising her voice at the parents of a child in her care, I question the level of morale there. From what we have observed, Azar is not a constant presence at the center and is clearly disengaged to what goes on there. She just deflects and talks about how long they have been open and their "reputation".
Our experience of this daycare is that parents' input, feedback, and concerns are not important to management, and parents are not allowed to question the well-being of your child. This is truly appalling, since our child is very young and not yet able to speak for himself. The facilities are also questionable: the doorknob to the infant room fell off and instead of replacing it immediately, they tied a piece of fabric to open and close it for an extended period of time. We also found out the owner made the hallways of this building a "museum" of some sort, so when they have events for this "museum", they move the divider out of the way, and the infant room is used.
I highly recommend to pay a little more in tuition for child care elsewhere (like we did), and you'll likely find a place with better facilities, where you're valued, can collaborate well with and truly feel like you can trust the staff. read more
