Let me preface this by saying, my husband is a civil engineer and I'm a web developer. We are…read morereasonable, well-educated people who are not the types to leave reviews, but our experience with this daycare was so bad we feel inclined to offer some insight into those considering this facility. Most importantly, we want to warn other parents who love their child as much as we love ours about some potential problems.
Personally, I wish I had gone with my gut instinct when on my son's first day no teacher bothered to let me know how he did, or even approached me, when I picked him up from the preschool, because they all were too busy sitting at a picnic bench while the big and little kids all played outside. Numerous times we discussed switching throughout our experience with this daycare, but we wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt since as mentioned above, I feel like we are reasonable people.
Here are the major issues we found to be point of concerns from our experience here:
1) Understaffed: There is a promised class-size ratio, and it seems like at certain times of day what is allowed by the state (7:1) was certainly surpassed in the toddler class. Even if it wasn't, teachers often seemed overwhelmed by large groups in the toddler class - one even letting us know she could not keep an eye on all of them. The lead teacher of our son's class even recommended searching for a facility with smaller class sizes when we brought up to her we were seriously considering removing our child.
2) Low-quality staff: There were a couple of teachers who were approachable and experienced, but for the most part, many were impersonal at best or seemed to lack basic knowledge one expects from a childcare worker on basic developmental phases. When any issues arose, as one can expect from the 1-2 year old range, we were often told by professional childcare workers that "I don't know what to do" which is an absurd thing to hear about basic developmental stuff with toddlers. This is not rocket science, but takes patience, staff, and close supervision.
3) Apparent lack of supervision: Often older children would wonder from room to room with no sort of supervision. This facility even has been reported for this issue, where one student stapled another students without the staff being aware: http://carefacility.doe.louisiana.gov/BlasPDF/SOD_08012018_50918_609720.pdf
"1713 A Supervision: Children were not under supervision at all times as: On 7/16/18, O1 discovered a staple in C1's right thumb. According to O1, he picked C1 up from the center around 4 pm and they went home. O1 was washing C1's hands and discovered the staple in C1's right thumb. O1 took C1 to the Emergency Room where the staple was removed. According to S3, she gave C1 the stapler to hold while they were working on a class project. S3 does not know when C1's thumb was stapled. According to S3, C1 did not say anything and did not indicate he was hurt in any way. S3 was unaware of the staple in C1's thumb until notified by S2 of the incident around 4pm-4:30 pm. C1 was not closely supervised while C1 held a stapler since a staple was in his thumb and staff was not aware that a staple was in C1's thumb."
From my personal experience, I noticed often when I came early to pick up my son that teachers would be just sitting and sometimes looking at their smart phones. Due to the lack of supervision, there were frequent "incidents" from bites, falls, and scratches. This is normal toddler behavior but given the frequency it is hard for me to believe the facility is adequately staffed, or if it is, that the staff are paying close enough attention. When I told other childcare workers about what happened at our gym daycare and other friends, this was their exact response, the facility is obviously not hiring enough teachers or hiring the right teachers.
