Our daughter started at Kiddie Academy when she had just turned 18 months and she's been there for…read moreabout a month and a half so far and... we LOVE it!
We did not visit many daycares before settling on this one, but we had spoken to friends who had visited 20+ places around the area and we went to the one that had ended up at the top of their list and it was .... fine... but a little sad, a little run down, a little crowded. The food provided was all pizza, burgers and hot dogs. Most importantly, the teachers looks just tired and on the verge of not caring. The kids walked off in their own direction like lost sad little puppies. It just felt a little bit like a sad zoo. I'm sure it's fine and safe and the kids learn there, but we were just so dispirited coming out of there, especially since we had it on good authority that this was THE place to be in town. To boot, they had a year waitlist! We got on the list and set out search aside and decided to continue our somewhat dysfunctional childcare arrangements of the time.
Then Kiddie Academy opened. It is very close to our house, but we never went in at first before we had not heard anything about it. Well, let me tell you, we are SO happy that we checked it out! It's a franchise, newly opened, newly built-out. The space is pristinely clean. There are windows everywhere, so it's very bright. We went there on a Friday afternoon, same as with the first place. End of the week, end of the day. Instead of finding tired, run-down teachers in a run-down place with sad aimless children, we found everything in perfect shape and order, the teachers were all SMILING and AWAKE and ACTIVE. The kids looked content and happy and playful and well-cared-for. They looked like CHILDREN, not like little imprisoned zoo animals. The owner and the director were both present and they both new the exciting highlights of each kids day. The parents that walked in to get their kids gushed about the place.
This is a franchise. The owner, Esther, worked four years to get the place planned and opened. She's proud of every furniture and architectural choice. She cares about every kid and she takes a huge amount of involvement in the standard of care the children receive. The place is rigged with webcams, so you can watch your child's classroom and the outdoor playground from your smartphone. Esther uses the camera to watch the children and teachers. She's there every day, but she notices things even when she's at home in the morning and watching remotely, and she gives immediate feedback to the teachers if she things something isn't ideal. I know they've lost a few teachers because of this kind of supervision, but you know what? The teachers that are left are amazing - a significant cut above what I saw at the other place. They CARE about the kids. They LISTEN to the parents. And the communicate to us the details of our daughters day.
The place is very high-tech. There is a TV at the entrance with all the camera feeds. The teachers have iPads. At the end of every day, you get an email with a very detailed log that tells you what your kid ate and how much and when, the history of her diaper changes that day, any special notes, what mood she was in and what activities the class did that day. There are also photos and sometimes even videos!
Since starting at "school", our daughter has been HAPPY to go in the mornings and not always very happy to leave in the afternoon. She's been developing impressively. Everyone knows her well - not just her teachers and the director and owner, but also teachers from other classrooms. Most teachers have different schedules to accommodate their own life, so there is a lot of mixing where teachers from various classrooms cover shifts in other classrooms. I actually really like this flexibility. It gives the kids a larger social circle and the teachers seem to know what's going on with all the kids, not just a small group. And there is a variety of care and activities and personalities.
They provide lunch and a morning and afternoon snack. The morning snack is basically a full breakfast, but it's at 9am, so we bring a breakfast and other parents do, too. It's a supervised normal meal, just the kitchen is not open yet. The food menu is varied and quite lovely and healthy and not at all fast food after more fast food.
They do great art projects all the time and have music every day, but also a great "creative movement" class weekly or biweekly and that's where the best videos come from.
They go outside twice a day. The playground is brand new, with nice equipment.
The doors are key-coded.
The hours are great: 7am to 6pm.
Occasionally, they do little events where parents are invite.
Esther once told me that she didn't just want to open "a place", she wanted to open "the BEST place". And that really shows through.
