Above And Beyond Child Care

We moved to the U.S. just 2.5 months ago, and both we as parents and our daughter speak very little English. It’s only been 3 weeks since she started at ABC, but we already feel so lucky to have Ms. Makaila as her teacher. There has been no discrimination at all. Ms. Makaila has made a real effort to help our daughter adjust to the class, the language, and the new environment — and she continues to do so. It would have been easy to ignore a scared or crying child, but she chose to care, support, and include her instead. We’re also very thankful to Ms. Liz and the whole school team. They’ve been helpful and supportive from day one. This is a place where you can confidently entrust your child. Lots of love ❤️

Our son spent a few months in the infant room with Miss Donna and Miss Kati in hooksett. It's nerve-racking leaving your newborn with someone you don't know anything about, but my nerves were very quickly put at ease when getting to know Donna and Kati. Donna is a gem. She loves the babies, loves doing little projects with them (often involving paint and footprints), and is just a very genuine lady. And I have a soft spot for Kati. Kati isn't the official teacher of the class, but she has the class nextdoor and often covers the classroom for Donna if they have split shifts. She is such a sweetheart and easy to love quickly. Both are great ladies who seem to do really well with the babies. At times, there will be other teachers floating into the classroom for coverage (although it's more consistently just Donna and Kati). All of them have been great. I read negative reviews about management, but I've never had any negative interactions with Liz or Cassie. They have both been very warm in all conversations I've had with them. So I wouldn't read too into those comments about them. And the daycare uses Procare. So you get live time updates from the teachers - schedule updates for feeds/diaper changes/naps, cute photos, messages/requests from the teachers. This is a great asset for parents, especially when you don't have experience with the teachers ahead of time. It's nice to have that connection to your child, even when you're gone. The only reason that I've removed my child is because costs got too high for my family, and the commute started to get to be too much. As far as quality, I have never seen any sort of red flag (behaviors, safety risks, etc.) that would cause me to caution anyone about this childcare site. They truly have provided me with a great experience since the beginning. And really, the only reason that I'm not giving five stars is because of the cost. So I would encourage anyone looking for childcare to give Above and Beyond a chance.

ABC review My child has been coming to this daycare since he was 3 months old, he is now 2.5. The only reason I have not removed him up to this point, is because of all of the connections he’s made with other children and a certain 2 teachers, Ms. Virginia and Ms. Makaila who have genuine hearts and have always been so kind to me and my child. It’s definitely been made apparent which teachers actually cared about my child and his well-being. It’s inevitable our children will grow and will need to transfer classrooms/teachers, but we’d hope as parents that our children are always given the best care, since we are not there to provide that ourselves due to having to work or be away for whatever reason. There are so many bad things I can say about this center, and can honestly say the only comfort I had with them was the fact I knew I could openly go to those 2 teachers my son and I had such a close bond with. The management at ABC, Rebecca the director, and Elizabeth the assistant director or whatever she calls herself, has shown me they only care about the business and not the children who attend. I’ve asked to be notified about unusual bowel movements. Pretty simple request right? To them, it was “demeaning”. They told me when a parent becomes defensive it causes them to be. How do you respond to an upset parent this way? They clearly didn’t care if my child attended their center or not because who speaks to a concerned parent in this manner? She proceeded to tell me if I didn’t like the care my child received then to find another daycare and when I said I would, she said “great you can take him now then”. I couldn’t believe how nasty she treated a parent of a child who has been attending for years. If you’re looking to pay a daycare to make sure your child is alive, this is the one for you. Don’t expect your concerns or wants as a parent to be heard, respected or understood.

ABC is an incredible childcare facility. My children have attended since 2021 and I am so grateful to know that I can trust the staff with our babies. These individuals truly have become family and they do just that, go above and beyond for all of our babies. <3

Critical Violation of Licensing rule He-C 4002.14 B (21) My Son attended ABC for about 3 years, which was going great. As of 12/2020, I started to notice strong chemicals in the three/four year old class (Hooksett). The teachers, Director, Executive Director, and Owner advised me it was because 6 buckets of chemicals (I think they said it was called 295 solution, smelled like bleach) were soaking to clean toys, located in the kitchen. The kitchen/class is an open concept, the kids are within 5-10 feet of it, no open windows/proper ventilation, which was filling the room with chemical fumes/vapors, eyes would burn at pick up. The buckets of chemicals were being left out, near the kids, from the time they had their nap until the end of the afternoon (as I was told). The Director apologized & confirmed it was strong. That stopped, but as time went on, I started to smell strong Pinsol, it would get slightly better off/on. However, most recently one Monday, the vapors were bad, so I asked again. I was told that the Friday prior, they soaked the class trash buckets with water and Pinsol solution, and left them in the class all weekend to "clean". There's 2 classrooms in that room - separated by a 1/2 wall, I think there's 2 bathrooms, and then the kitchen - so that's a lot of trash buckets soaking with Pinsol all weekend without proper ventilation, as the manufacturer recommends. When that Monday came, the trash cans were emptied. This clearly made the room a hazard to the kids coming into the building. the Executive Director confirmed there were no windows open and actually said, "It's difficult because the windows in the class don't open." - right, so that's more of a reason NOT to soak chemicals in the class for hours/days. I was told that the process would not change at that time, "maybe sometime in the future, but there's no guarantee". The Executive Director (owner's Daughter) hurried me off the phone. The Director and Owner were on vacation that week, there was no one to follow-up with. I called the State of NH Child Care Licensing Center (271-9025) to see if my observations were petty. Kathleen & Kate from the state confirmed that ABC (Above and Beyond Childcare) were not only in violation, but in "critical" violation of the following NH Childcare Licensing rule, He-C 4002.14 Health and Safety in the Child Care Environment # B (21), which means that child care centers are obligated to keep kids safe and free from fumes from toxic or harmful chemicals or materials. Pinsol is considered a toxic chemical, as I am sure the "295 solution" is as well. At first I didn't file a complaint with the state, I brought back that info to ABC, giving the benefit of the doubt, maybe they didn't realize it was a critical violation. Once I spoke to them about this, they became upset and told me that my Son had 1 more week at their center. It was clear that they were probably not going to stop the hazardous behavior, which was exposing the children/staff to vapors/fumes all day, so I did end up filing a formal critical violation complaint to the state, for the safety of those who remain there. The point of this review is to inform parents that their observations/concerns are valid, please don't just drop off and pick up without observing the environment your child is in all day, make sure it's safe/comfortable. If you have any concerns call the NH Licensing Center at the above number, they can confirm if you concerns are valid or not - as the state confirmed mine that day. Don't be afraid to "rock the boat" as your child's safety is priority, there are a ton of centers out there as options, if needed. This is not to put ABC down as they were great up until 12/'20 - basically they started to over clean due to COVID & not properly use the chemicals per manufacturer recommendations. The owner suggested I seek care at an "organic" center, lol but little does she know my supply closet is full of Lysol, Clorox, Windex, etc. The difference is the proper use of them, per manufacturer recommendations. Teachers are great, we miss them.