I was going to take my child here - the staff were nice. I turned in my paperwork and paid the…read morefee. Then as I was speaking to folks in the community - they warned me not to take my child here because of abuse. As I searched the web I saw this. I asked the staff about this and they indicated it was due to disgruntled staff or parents and not valid. But my gut was like don't take her. I did not get my enrollment fee back - heck I didn't even ask for it. I am giving them this rating to help others to make sure you do what is best for your child and leave them in a safe space. Finding safe child care is hard and VA does not do a good job with helping parents with child care - Just pray over your kids , talk to them to find out what is going on and do your best to keep them safe.

awful place…read more caterpillar clubhouse recently took over a faculty called bashful giraffe. my children have been At Bashful giraffe for 5 years. my youngest has been there for 4. his teacher stayed through the transition and she is amazing - it's the new owners - horrible ... I took him out for the summer because there seemed to be a lot of hostility with staff. prior to me taking him out for the summer they were very rude to me regarding a spot for the fall, said it wouldn't be guaranteed. then I asked them again about giving a deposit a week later and they said they wouldn't need it until right before he returned- to contact a week prior. the beginning of august I contacted them and a week before he was supposed to start in mid august I went in to the office twice. both times they were incredibly disorganized and files were just piled on top of eachother. They couldn't even find his paperwork I sent in June. the Woman still couldn't find the paperwork and informed my me it was "probably " in her car. in her car ?! my son's paperwork should NOT be in her car. I re submitted the paperwork as I did not want to take him out because he has been there since he was born. he was there for a total of 2 weeks since mid august and during that time he has been sick everyday ,since the 3rd day, had 2 injuries in that time. one week there was a sign in the door that hand foot and mouth was going through the school. another week there was a sign that virtual pneumonia was going through the school ( I still don't know if the sign was supposed to say viral or if it actually was virtual - no one ever discussed with me) they refused to accept him Monday the. second week her attended because their power was out due to unforeseen circumstances but they accepted other kids for the first two hours before they needed to try to contact their parents to pick them up and there was no notification of this until you arrived at the facility and there was a sign on the door once you already arrived. the woman told me they found out about 6:30 that morning. I was there at 8:26 so they had almost 2 hours to try to contact parents. woman said they couldn't because there was no wifi because of the power outage. we just about all have cell phones now so I am sure that someone could have contacted someone and I discussed emergency preparedness with her. she offered no plan to rectify if another situation were to occur. she told me I could call the director who is her mom. her grandmother was in the room when I was unhappily addressing my concerns. I tried to give them a check I had written for the week but told them I was not paying for Monday since they did not accept my child so they told me they would not accept my check and to call her mom. I was not able to Contact Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday. due to other issues with an illness I had recently had and my mother picked him up from the daycare Thursday and friday. I went to call them after work Friday to let them know I would take care of it the beginning of next week but I had an email from them that said because I had not made payment then my son would not be able to come back the following week unless I brought a check by 6:00pm that day. So I emailed them that I was pulling him out , went to the daycare to collect his items and scratched through the old check , initialed it, dates it, adjusted the amount to subtract monday . Gave it to them and told them they were horrible and I've had nothing but problems in a two week time span. they couldn't find paperwork multiple times, my son had been injured 2xs, sick, and multiple other illness going through the school each week, they refused to accept my son, then my check, then gave me less than 6 hrs notice via email that it needed to be in when I had not had a chance to even touch base with the mother/director and they refused to accept it initially. my mother picked him up thursday and Friday and said on Friday a small baby was screaming in the toddler room by itself and no staff - then after she walked by and a staff member came in. I have also seen this with kids screaming and snot running down their face and nothing is done. I was so horrified with all of this over the two weeks I had already been talking to an alternate but his teacher was absolutely wonderful , she was there from when Bashful Giraffe owned the facility and I wanted him in her class so I was trying not to leave. But it was just too horrible of an experience to stay. when I went to give them the adjusted check and collect his items another parent in the parkinglot told me that she watched 3 kids (all under the age of 4) run from the playground out of the fence into the parkinglot without a teacher. it was pick up drop off time when it happened so cars were coming by They are having another price increase so it will have gone up 2xs in 4 months as the price increased with their take over ! Total about $50 a week ! I do NOT recommend.