My child went to school here for about 1.5 years.
Overall, it is an OK daycare and a bad preschool.
THE GOOD:
Most importantly! It's a safe place for the children.
They provide breakfast and lunch for your children. Lot's of time savings. The 2 guys who prep the kids food are SUPER friendly and all the children seem to love them. :)
They have video cams that you can log into to see your child.
This is VERY rare to see. While I only logged in a couple times a day, I knew people who stared at their kids all day and it made them feel better . :)
The owners also have a doctors office next door. I didn't use the doctors, but having doctors next door is comforting just in case.
There is a dinner program.
You just grab it when you pick up your kids! Food is decent and the prices are reasonable...GOOD VALUE!!! We used this every 2 weeks or so.
THE BAD:
They are disorganized in managing classrooms.
While they will tell you that kids move at specific intervals, it just doesn't happen. Kids are moved around like pawns according to who's enrolling and your kids could be the oldest or youngest by far in a classroom. I have *heard* instances where children get moved around every 3-4 months. Not having that stability can be taxing on the kiddos and can affect their development. In my case, movements were just at a random times and happened swiftly.
Teachers clean during the day. (wait what!?! isn't that a good thing?)
I love that the place is always clean, but vacuuming, doing laundry, cleaning windows is all time NOT focused on the children. The saddest part was watching the teachers vacuum and seeing children crying out of fear. BTW, I saw all this in the cameras. :) It's my personal opinion that teachers should focus on children (singing, art, skill development etc). Cleaning should be left to a cleaning service that works after hours.
No curriculum for the school or for individual classes.
Take this as you will, but others school have "Letters of the week", "Animals of the Month", "sport of the week", Music classes. This place does have much of that and what they did have didn't really get followed.
MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCES....
Newborn Class teachers were REALLY good. After that, meh. Communication was always an issue. Getting teachers to give you information was not easy.
When there was hitting going on in the classroom (which is normal at 2 yo), I was told that my kid is "too sensitive" when I inquired. While the sensitivity of my child is an opinion, it really doesn't have anything to do with hitting and pulling hair and more importantly what was being done to address this behavior. :( I was really disappointed at the response I received and expected something a little more helpful.
My child had trouble at drop-offs and didn't want me to leave so she clung to me. In 2 different classrooms, when that happened no one came over to help out. There were days I had to stand there for 5 minutes until a teacher paid attention and helped comfort my crying child.
Some rooms were not equipped to handle children's needs.
When it was time to potty train, there was no toilet in the room. We were told that the kids can go into another classroom when they need to go. YIKES....First, for the price we pay, I would expect a toilet in a 2 year old room. Second, for anyone who has potty trained before, when a toddler needs to go, THEY NEED TO GO :). Waiting for another teacher to come to ensure the "ratio" rules are followed and expecting a LO to "hold it" isn't a path to success. The director pretty much told us to deal with it.
BTW....this was our final straw and decided to move after this.
There is no outdoor playground for children under 3 (or 4). The LOs had to play in a little alley way on the side of the building. To be fair, there was a small indoor playground for the winter.
3 STARS...
I know this review is more on the negative side, but I put ALOT of weight on "safe place". My feeling towards this daycare is that they have the right intentions, but they are still trying to figure it out.
If you're looking for a safe place for your children, don't want to make lunch everyday, and value the ability to watch your kids all day long, this can be a good place for you.
If you want your kiddos to be in a more "preschool" atmosphere to learn, work with teachers that are more "understanding", have teachers 100% focused on the children's needs vs house-keeping, have more predictable classroom moves that is based on child's age and needs, I would look elsewhere.
From my understanding, they have started making moves to fix some of the things I mentioned above, but do you really want to be a part of the "fixing stage" or part of an established process? I chose to go to a more established place.
I have since moved to another daycare and have been there for about 8 months. Everyone (me,wife,child) are happy now. :) Check out my other reviews if you want more info. read more