Apple Tree Academies INC

My son has been going to The Nest Schools in the infant room since May, and we have had a wonderful experience with The Nest! Mrs Kelsey the director, is very good at her job and is always understanding! Mrs Vicky in the infant room is wonderful, and always takes great care of ALL the babies! All the teachers at The Nest are kind, attentive, compassionate, and they ALL have great bonds with the children in their care. The Nest School is a clean and safe environment. If you are looking for a place to leave your child/children while you work, this is the place!😊

Both our children are students at The Nest and it has been an amazing experience. Our children are well cared for and we can work without worry. All the teachers have been wonderful and pay special to each child's unique needs and interests. We couldn't recommend it more!

Since the very first day we toured, the staff answered all our questions, were very pleasant and very much love the children they serve. The classes are clean and organized. As a parent working in healthcare they prioritize health and safety along with work with early morning drop offs and long days without judgement. They do a lot of different activities with the babies including outside time. The Procare app is super helpful to feel informed while they also provide the cutest of photos to help you feel more connected during the day. I feel very confident that my child is in good hands while there which we are so appreciative of!

I do not recommend this childcare center. For the price, you can find a place nearby with more experienced staff, especially with children. The staff turnover is alarmingly high, and communication is poor. The qualifications here are minimal—just a clean background check, a high school diploma, and being 18. There’s no prior experience with children required, making it more of a daycare than a structured learning environment. After two separate incidents where my son was inappropriately handled by Danielle in the fours classroom, I had to pull him out. The assistant director, Amy Lee, accused my son of things without any proof and failed to provide details or incident reports. My son's behavior began to regress, especially after his primary teacher, Ms. Susan, went on medical leave. The classroom environment is chaotic, with little structure or support. They quickly call parents about roughhousing but fail to report accidents unless you ask. On his last day, Amy Lee refused to give me contact info for higher management and was unhelpful with requests for video proof of the incident. While we were initially hopeful after meeting with the director, Kelsey, and Ms. Susan, the lack of safety and structure led to my decision to remove my son. There are other schools nearby that are better qualified to prepare your child for kindergarten at a similar cost.

“I’m still learning” is not an excuse for not making things right”. This is what I said in response to the email sent to me by the director with upper management copied and I heard no response back. This is what I mean by lack of professionalism. It’s just disappointing when large organizations like this make a mistake and instead of humbly admitting this and trying to offer condolences or accept your request, you get a defensive company and staff that admit they made a mistake but are unwilling to fix anything. The staff taking care of the babies in the Hummingbirds classroom are fine. They document everything like when your child uses the restroom (has diaper changes in this case), when they eat and how much they eat, pictures once or twice a day. The care wasn’t as good as what I could give my baby, but then again, no one will take care of your child as well as you will. My irritation with The Nest is that it’s a corporation. You’d be better off finding an independently owned daycare - not a chain of any kind. There is no personalization, they’re in it for the money, nothing else. No one cares or is willing to help you in the billing department. When I enrolled my child 6 months prior to her start date, I was not told that they gave discounts of any kind. Unless you just know about discounts, they don’t tell you. My husband works for Novant Health which allows the $150 deposit to be waived and gives you 10% off your monthly pay. I found out about this from one of my husband’s coworkers just before enrollment. The assistant director and the director told me they would get my husband’s proof of employment to the billing department so that this could be applied. Then the bill came for the month of August. We were overcharged and I asked why. No one would tell me and when I asked multiple times, I was just given excuses. They ended up keeping our $150 deposit and refused to give us any money back at all. This is also after we were told the bill would be ~$70 cheaper for the month of August than what they charged us. If the director and assistant director didn’t know for sure that we could get our $150 deposit back, they shouldn’t have told me we would, right? When I tried to talk to the billing department about it, she was very very rude and offered no condolences for us being given false information and, though their handbook says they have the ability to issue refunds, she lied and told me they can’t. In addition to billing overcharges, I was not given a code to the front door, so I was 15 minutes late after having to call the phone number for the school for someone to let me in. I never received paperwork prior to the first day of school, but they were upset that the paperwork was not on file. They searched my baby’s diaper bag for a reason unknown to me and “confiscated it” from the infant classroom because there were gas drops and Tylenol in the front pocket - this was AFTER I told her teachers there were gas drops and Tylenol in the bag. Online it says that your child can wear a sleep sack, so we bought a sleep sack specifically for daycare. On the first day, they told me they actually can’t use a sleep sack. I was then emailed a document that was ~supposed~ to be reviewed with me prior to enrollment /her first day (per the document) but this was never reviewed with me. It was just disclosed in a small sentence on one of the million forms they rush you to fill out. So she went from taking 4 hours worth of naps each day to taking about 40 minutes worth of naps when she was there. There was just a HUGE lack of communication from the start. I was highly unimpressed and wouldn’t send another child there ever and I definitely recommend finding an in-home daycare or some other option. For $1300 a month, you’d expect much more professionalism than what we saw.