I strongly recommend that parents carefully reconsider before enrolling their child at The Pillars…read more Our family's experience was extremely disappointing, and the number of issues we encountered ultimately caused us to lose confidence in the care and management of this facility.
From the beginning, communication and organization were major problems. When we initially enrolled our child, our paperwork was lost. Unfortunately, that turned out to be only the beginning of the issues we experienced.
Communication throughout our time at The Pillars was consistently poor. There were numerous occasions when phone calls were not answered, and we frequently had difficulty getting information about our child while he was in their care. We were also told about internet-related issues that affected their ability to upload updates, leaving us with little or no information about what was happening with our child during the day.
We also had serious concerns regarding staffing and the apparent child-to-teacher ratio. There were times when it appeared there were simply too many children for the available staff to properly supervise and care for.
Basic supplies that we provided for our child, including diapers and wipes, were lost or misplaced. More concerning was the diapering care itself. Our child came home with severe diaper rash, which raised serious concerns for us about how frequently he was being checked and changed while in their care.
We also became concerned about whether his basic needs were being adequately met throughout the day. On numerous occasions, when he came home from The Pillars, he would immediately devour food and drink a significant amount of water. As parents, seeing our child come home appearing extremely hungry and thirsty was very concerning and made us question whether he was receiving adequate food and water throughout the day.
Another major concern involved injuries. Our child was bitten by other children multiple times. On several occasions, we were NOT informed by the school. We discovered that he had been bitten only after getting him home and removing his shirt. Regardless of how common biting may be among young children, parents should absolutely be notified when their child is injured while in someone else's care.
We also experienced significant billing and administrative issues. At one point, The Pillars withdrew THREE WEEKS of tuition at once without informing us beforehand. Unexpectedly removing that amount of money from a family's account without clear advance communication is unacceptable in our opinion.
Taken individually, some of these problems might be dismissed as mistakes. Taken together--the lost enrollment paperwork, poor communication, unanswered phones, unreliable daily updates, staffing concerns, lost diapers and wipes, diapering concerns, severe diaper rash, our child repeatedly coming home appearing extremely hungry and thirsty, biting incidents that were not communicated to us, and an unexpected three-week tuition withdrawal--they became a pattern that we could no longer overlook.
When parents leave their child at daycare, they are placing an enormous amount of trust in that facility. We expected basic communication, transparency, proper supervision, appropriate hygiene, notification when our child was injured, attention to his basic needs, and professional handling of our account. Based on our experience, The Pillars repeatedly fell short of those expectations.
We ultimately removed our child because we no longer felt comfortable entrusting The Pillars with his care.
I am writing this review because prospective parents deserve to know about our experience before making a decision about where to place their child. I strongly encourage anyone considering The Pillars to ask detailed questions about staffing ratios, diaper-changing procedures, meals and access to water, incident reporting, parent communication, billing practices, and how the school communicates when its systems are unavailable.
Based on our family's experience, I cannot recommend The Pillars.
