This is my kid's first KinderCare experience. I'll honestly summarize my impressions on KinderCare Puyallup. I also visited a few KinderCare centers in Ohio. Generally I am not impressed because all the KinderCare centers I visited are not clean or at least not good at cleaning. My kid was enrolled in this KinderCare center in September 2023 until Dec 26, 2023. Before this, my kid stayed in a Goddard in Ohio for less than two years.
1. Unpleasant and unorganized environment (I care about this the most). The environment outside of the center, most obviously the parking lot and the area by the fences, is full of garbage. And it's always been like that. No one cleans it up. This is not just about Puyallup KinderCare, and all the KinderCare centers I visited are NOT clean. In terms of cleaning, Goddard is doing a way better job than KinderCare. The inside classroom also looks dirty and not organized.
2. The teachers in Puyallup KinderCare center are generally fine. I like that for some days they take many photos so that I know what my kid was doing there in real time. Except this they seem not good at communicating with parents. For some days they don't send us even a single photo. This was kind of dramatic/weird to me and I wondered what happened on such days. They didn't explain why either. Kids enter the classroom in the morning and the teachers usually do not welcome kids and are usually busy doing their own things. In addition, they don't introduce themselves to us parents. Until my kid leaves the center, I only know one of the teachers' names, and I figured it out by myself because we tried to give the teachers gifts before Christmas. No one tells you who they are and what they do.
3. Unprofessional photo taking. Another dramatic/weird thing I had experienced was that I often received a solo photo of someone else's kid and it was named as my kid's. Again this "OFTEN" happened. One day, I received three photos in total. And you know what? I didn't see my kid in any of all the three photos. I commented under one of the three photos. Since then, they seem to be trying to do better.
4. The director of this center was fine and easy to communicate with at the beginning. When I let her know that my kid was leaving and when I could pick up my kid's stuff, the only thing she cared about was the money for the last two weeks' tuition. She ignored my question about when I could pick up my kid's stuff. My kid didn't go to the daycare for even one day from Dec 26, 2023 to Jan 9, 2024, but we still were demanded again and again to pay for these two weeks (I already paid for Dec 26-31, 2023 before the month of December). During these two weeks, every one of her emails was about the money we "owe" to her. I let her send me the contract but she ignored my email. After I re-requested it again and told her I would ask the KinderCare Board of Directors for more information if necessary, she said she didn't see my last email. She did see the balance of $353.02 for Jan 1-9, 2024 of my account.
Generally, I don't recommend this KinderCare center. I wanted to give 1 star but I still appreciate some of the teachers so I am giving two stars here. read more
