In 2021, I was referred to Abacus by several of my friends who are K-6 teachers and doctors who had…read moresent their children to Abacus. We went on a tour with Ms. Erin, who is a certified teacher and who taught at Abacus for years before becoming the Assistant Director. She presented herself as caring, communicative, involved, and present-- this initial assessment has proven to be true in the years we have known her. When our whole family came down with Covid and RSV three weeks after we enrolled, she checked on us daily which certainly is not a requirement of that job. We also interact with Ms. Stephanie, the Director--note not the owner as stated in a previous review-- frequently. Stephanie has gone the extra mile on several occasions for our family whether it be personally searching for my lost cell phone or checking-in our family after one of our parents died unexpectedly or providing us updates when our daughter was having ear issues.
When our oldest was in the 2's, she had Miss Pam. Miss Pam was everything you could ask for and more. She was caring, attentive, and gave me or my spouse a verbal update every day when we picked-up our child in addition to the updates we get in the on-line system throughout the day. Our child was very shy as a pandemic baby who hadn't interacted much. Miss Pam saw this and adjusted her approach to help pull our child out of her shell; she invested time in knowing what was going on outside the classroom (e.g. asking our child how dance was going, how the dogs were, how grandparents were doing). More importantly, our child's experience was so positive there is not only a love to go to "school", but also a love to learn and tell us what new thing the class learned each day. Miss Pam's approach was so good I made the request that our youngest child was also placed in her class.
One thing that impresses me about Abacus, is the innovative experiences they generate for the kids and how they include our families. There is a trick-or-treating event where everyone goes with their children to trick-or-treat throughout Haile. Holiday parties. The holiday gifts, mother's and Father's Day gifts that they work tirelessly with children to create are both thoughtful, useful, and you can see how excited the children are to give back to their families. They bring in fire fighters, police officers, dentists, physical fitness leaders, and more to interact with the children. Abacus also has partnerships with Soccer Shots and Independance which allows children to do dance and soccer, so children can do those activities on site rather than having to pick them up and take them after their day ends.
In this past year, when my children lost their grandparent- the first death in our family, Abacus teachers and administrators went above and beyond to comfort her when she needed it, update me, and help my 3 year old move through the awful experience of realizing death is part of life.
I hadn't intended for this post to be this long, but I will end with I understand that experiences are different. I started my career working-in K-12 and as any parent, like every parent, I take my child's education and day care very seriously. I have referred multiple families with a wide variety of family backgrounds, nationalities, and with both boys and girls. As I've followed-up with them on their experiences, they have also had very positive experience with Abacus.
