KinderCare Wexford is the most poorly managed daycare I've ever seen. My spouse and I had our son…read moreenrolled in a KinderCare in Sterling, VA where he was happy. When we relocated to Pittsburgh last year, we figured the care would be similar when we transferred him into this KinderCare. We were so wrong!
The worst thing is the director. She sends emails at least once (sometimes two or three times) a week asking parents to keep their children home. If she doesn't get enough "volunteers," she will close your child's classroom for a day - or two days - or even three days a week. The reason for these frequent closures surely cannot be that every teacher quits or calls off, but I believe she is a terrible manager, and good teachers leave or do not wish to work for her when she recruits. I fear she's created a reputation in the area, and good teachers aren't willing to take her job offers because she has created a hostile work environment. The children are the ones that end up suffering with all these frequent days off, and working parents (who are paying roughly $18,000.00 per year per child for the service) have to make snap last minute desperate decisions about what to do with their kids on a day that a room is closed. One time she sent at text message to parents at 8:10am. We had our son in the car seat, and we were on our way to the daycare with him when she closed his room with no notice. She appears terribly unfriendly, and we observed her wearing inappropriate political "Make Wexford Great Again" swag clothing to the parents' night.
The center director's communication is awful, too. She frequently sends emails to parents with wrong dates and attachments, which causes confusion. Then she sends corrections that are still wrong. Usually she'll send a third message in all caps when she finally gets the dates, times, and spellings right. She even sent us one email that our son's room was closed, then proceeded to send a second email about a fundraiser within that very same hour. Who feels like giving anybody money when you're not getting the services the daycare promised? She also got us to sign up for Soccer Shots lessons on Wednesdays that cost about $130.00. That seems to be the day she closes our son's room most frequently. We paid for eight soccer lessons, and our son has only had one of them. When I asked for a refund on that, she ignored me.
This place is dirty. They leave dirty buckets of mop water in the hallways on the rare occasion they actually use them. The kitchen isn't secured, and they have heating elements accessible where kids can wander in. The floors are filthy, and the kids play with toys that are falling apart. We decided on a new daycare center some time ago and only recently worked our way up the waiting list to where our son can start somewhere new next week.
The last item is the curriculum. There is none. When other toddler classrooms are learning letters, numbers, and colors, the kids at this center are just being "babysat." At the other KinderCare center in Virginia where our son was enrolled, the teacher in the 12 mo - 18 mo room went over colors, numbers, and letters every morning. Now we get app updates that there is "free play" most of the day, some songs, and basic skills like changing shoes. If we were interested in this kind of babysitting, we'd be going to a non-academy setting that is far less expensive. Our son will be three, and he doesn't even recognize letters or numbers when we try to show him at home.
My advice to anybody reading this is to stay away. KinderCare must replace this center's director, and new management must take over before anybody should be sending their children. I called their corporate offices to complain about the frequent closures, and the agent told me, "that's what we do."
The agent suggested I call the regional director and gave me her number. I called twice and never received a call back. She only returned my message two weeks later, but we knew we were enrolling our son elsewhere by that point.
