First I'd like to review the church and also the preschool. Let's start with the church first;
When I was new to this area I was looking for a good church to raise my family in and I attended services at this church multiple times, on multiple holidays and over quite a long period of time. I have to say that not only was the church a horrible let down it became down right abhorrent.
If you have seizures, respect and reverence for God, or appreciate community in any way this is not the place for you. Going to church here is like attending a mini-rock concert with raging guitars, drums, and flashing lights in every color with the Pastor in jeans and an untucked shirt playing rock-star. I did, however, enjoy "Noah's Cafe," as they have their own little mini Starbucks in there. However, it just became appalling to see people in their jeans and flip flops sipping on their latte's and eating bagels while they watch this "Rock N' Roll and Rappin'" Jesus service. I'm sorry but that is just not displaying the reverence and respect that I believe is appropriate when gathering to worship the Lord. The final straw for me, which earned this church the label of "disgusting," in my mind was at Easter when they sent out Easter notices to all of the members and attendees to "please not attend services on Easter day" as they were wanting to reserve the actual Easter day services for guest attendees. I'm sorry but I thought the whole point of supporting a church was to come together in a community of others to worship and support one another... especially on the holidays.
Now, let's get to the preschool. My child attended the preschool for almost two years. I will say that all of the teachers I had dealings with were outstanding people both in their hearts and in their ability to care for and work with children. The building is very new and appears to be well kept and well cleaned. The classrooms are new, with age appropriate activities and toys, there's a nice outdoor playground from what I could see and for rainy days there's a nice, large gymnasium sized room for indoor play. I had been quite satisfied with the preschool program until my child became very, very ill.
My child somehow caught c-diff, which is a life threatening bacterial infection of the intestines that is normally only found in nursing homes, hospitals, and in elderly people who have been chronically on antibiotics. My child had none of those risk factors. Now I can not say where my child acquired this infection. The only thing I can say is how disappointing and downright negligent the response was from the preschool.
Like I said, my child had attended there for nearly 2 years and not once did I receive a phone call, e-mail or text inquiring as to her health when she was nearly admitted to the hospital for this infection. Even after the health dept. called the school nobody called me to let me know that they were aware of and had performed the special cleaning precautions required to keep this infection from spreading and there is no doubt that my child went to this school while infected. Finally, after the newspaper did a story on the infection, I got a call from somebody I'd never even heard of before who left a message that they understood I had "some concerns." Even then, this person still didn't even so much as inquire about the health of my child or how the recovery was going. I was absolutely flabbergasted, and downright saddened and angry by the lack of communication, consideration or care.
While my child really loved the teachers and other children there and really wanted to return I had to make a tough decision and I decided NOT to return my child to this facility. I learned that church pre-schools are exempt from any kind of guidelines or health inspections through the newspaper article that was done about the "super-bug" my child contracted. After everything my child and I went through I just couldn't take a chance on re-infection. Additionally, I was just extremely disappointed in the outright indifference from the preschool that I experienced upon the serious illness of my child and after all of this time it seemed as though a phone call would have been appropriate, just to see if my child was returning or not.
Finally, to my knowledge, no note was sent home to other parents about the infection my child had while at that school and looking back over the course of the two years we were there we were never once notified if any child had strep in the class etc. like other preschools and child-care centers evidently do.
As much as it pains me to give such a harsh review I do feel that this one was most definitely earned.
UPDATE: After the article ran in the local paper about my child with the c-diff infection e-mails began coming in from other mother's with children who had the exact same symptoms. The school failed to notify any parent of what their child had been exposed to. Shame on Mt Ararat Preschool. They're irresponsible. read more
