When you apply to Buckle My Shoe the ever so smiling head teacher, Linda, and the other equally…read moresmiling, impossibly enthusiastic teachers make you feel so welcome. And, more importantly, they fill your head with just how excellent and superior Buckle My Shoe is. They use the Reggio Emilio Technique, they are expensive because they hire only the best of the best, etc... The truth however is more sinister...
Buckle My Shoe claims to adhere to the highest standards of education, but many teachers have trouble spelling basic words. For instance, 'bibs' was spelled 'bibes' and 'Dr Seuss' was 'Dr Seuse.'
I pulled my child out after one year, so let me tell you about the infant classroom. The head of the class, Miss Debra, does absolutely nothing, barely interacts with the children and rarely enters their class room. Even though she introduces herself as the head of the infant class, you will learn that you are paying her to sit all day by the front door eating non stop. Which is probably for the best since her level of education is such that she cannot string together one grammatically correct sentence. I'm not kidding when I say that at times the woman spoke 'street.' Isn't the whole point of 'street' that you learn it on the street, not from teachers in high paying schools such as Buckle My Shoe?! Oh and she's been there for 25 years, so is not likely to be going anywhere soon. And of course you, the parent, are paying high prices to keep her (and probably her union) happy.
The remaining infant class teachers are sweet, though extremely forgetful it seems, so be sure to label everything, or your kid will repeatedly go home wearing someone else's clothes, with some other kid's bottles or bibs (bibes) or spoons etc.
Here's another thing, you may supply all the diapers you like but they disappear at a rate of knots. And they're not all ending up on your child. Several times, baffled by the incredible diaper disappearance, I scoured the room for myself only to find half empty packets of my kid's diapers (all labelled with her name) strewn about the place, lost under a crib, stuffed in some other kid's cubbyhole, dropped behind a shelf. The place was an absolute mess. Oh and we're not talking about 30 kids here, that year the infant classroom had just 6.
The teachers, sweet as they are, seem to have trouble retaining even the most basic information. I frequently wondered why my child had diaper rash after a day at school, only to learn that the teachers were never applying the diaper rash cream that I had supplied. I repeatedly reminded them that every diaper change needed to be accompanied by a generous application of diaper rash cream, yet it NEVER happened. Each day my child would come home with a red butt. I would apply generous amounts of cream, only to send her to Buckle My Shoe the next day for another round of painfully red butt. It was frustrating.
When my child's birthday came around, I threw a party and invited the other kids in the class. No one showed up. Weeks later I bumped into another parent who told me that no one had showed up to her child's birthday party either. It turned out that the 'genius' teachers had forgotten to distribute our invitations to the other parents! Did they apologize when I confronted them. No. They just blamed one another.
And here's the worst part. Don't bother complaining to the smiling head teacher about anything, as you will quickly learn that you, the paying parent, are the enemy. I shuddered as I watched that sugary smile vanish, only to be replaced by a wall of callous, sociopathic hatred and hard eyes. I was traumatized for days by the transformation from sweet to cold in that woman's face, when I had informed her about all the spelling errors. Her response was "It's just one spelling mistake. Don't be so nasty." Unfortunately I only had photographic evidence of one spelling error (it hadn't occurred to me to photograph prior ones). I did mention that there had been more than one spelling mistake, but she wasn't interested, and was dead set on defending her staff against me, the paying enemy.
After that, I was no longer treated to the sugary smile, when I dropped off and collected my child.
Remember you, the parent are paying top dollar for this level of service.
Speaking of top dollar for absolutely nothing, once your child becomes ready for toilet training, I have heard from parents of older children, that Buckle My Shoe makes no attempt to help with your toilet training routine. The classes are small, yet Buckle My Shoe claim that they can't collaborate with you. Every other school I have interviewed (that is less expensive, provides longer hours and has larger classes), said that of course they would collaborate with parents in their toilet training efforts.
