My son has a dairy allergy. He was a student of the Learning Experience - Sunrise from the middle of October 2018 until the middle of February 2019. The issues began near January when he was moved from the 1 year old room to the 2 year old room. The teachers in the 1 year old room were incredibly nice and often referred to my son as "the sweetest child ever" and "the mayor" since he would smile and wave at anybody who would pass him in the hallway or enter his classroom.
When my son was picked up on January 23rd around 5:30pm, his entire body was covered in a dark red rash, and his eyes were almost completely shut. My poor son was throwing up before we even reached the car and from the condition of his shirt that day, it didn't look like the first time. No phone call was made from The Learning Experience - Sunrise to myself or any family member to give us an update about this reaction. When we asked his teacher and the Learning Experience's director (Elizabeth) what did he eat and why weren't we notified, we were only given a "Opps, sorry, he must have eaten someone else's food." Then the director walked away while we were still speaking because there was something 'more important' going on in the Learning Experience - Sunrise than addressing negligence from her facility and staff, as she'll do multiple times throughout this journey.
The company prides itself on their mobile application that sends pictures and updates of what is going on with their child that day. They usually start from the time the child is dropped off and updated almost every hour until your child picked up in the evening. We usually receive our last update and picture around 4:45pm. On this day? Our last update was received at 2:40pm. This shows me that the Learning Experience - Sunrise had already noticed this allergic reaction and didn't want to send us any bad updates. Maybe they were expecting it to get better before we arrived?
As parents, we get it, sometimes our children will get into somethings they weren't supposed to and accidents happen. We expected this to be a one-time incident, got my son treated properly and called it a night. You would think after this set of events that the Learning Experience - Sunrise would be more diligent in making sure my child did not consume any dairy products, right? Wrong.
The very next day, we get an update that that our son is eating a cheese quesadilla (provided by the Learning Experience - Sunrise). Understandably, we're now a little more furious since we just had the same exact issue the day before. We call the Learning Experience - Sunrise and ask to speak to the teacher to remind them to do not feed my son any dairy then was transferred to the director. Instead of being apologetic and re-assuring us that she will make sure that it will never happen again, she starts lambasting us about our "problem child" and how he "is constantly biting and probably just keeps taking other children's lunch." Well, this was news to us considering until we had the confrontation about the allergies, we've only received great feedback from his teachers and other staff members throughout the this school.
On 02/12, we spoke with my son's teacher and asked about his behavior. She told us "XXXX is great. He behaves just like every other child in the class room." When we told her about our recent interactions with the director, she was dumbfounded and responded with "don't worry about it, XXXX is just a regular 2 year old".
The ending of this story comes on 02/14. Shortly around noon, Elizabeth called and asked could my son eat pizza for their Valentine's Day party. "No, he cannot eat pizza". After re-iterating the dairy allergy once more, we were told it was understood that he would not have any pizza.
Within an hour later, Elizabeth calls again and starts telling us about "XXXX is out of control and is biting everyone! We are going to have to put an end to this behavior or we are going to dis-enroll him from the school. You need to come pick him up."
A little before arriving at the school, we receive another call that my son is now vomiting and we need to hurry to pick him up. When we got to the facility, we find my son actively vomiting and parts of his arms starting to form a rash. After asking "What did he eat?", we were told "We gave him pizza but removed the cheese." How much incompetence goes through the Learning Experience - Sunrise where you just asked a parent if their child can eat a certain food, you tell them no, but they still give it to the child, then try to rationalize their own incompetence.
Instead of accepting responsibility, the director informs us that my son is now dis-enrolled and that we owe for an extra two weeks due to "company policy".
If your child has any special needs or allergies, I cannot stress enough to avoid this place. Once any extra work or attention is required for your child, they will quickly make things up and try to dis-enroll your child. read more