Cornerstone Academy Day Center

If you don’t care about your kids, Cornerstone Academy is the place for you. Simply, Cornerstone is the WORSE daycare in the neighborhood. I was so excited that my kid started a pre-school education, but I have got disappointed. Teachers are friendly, regardless on the high turnover. Also, management is so unprofessional and carless. We have signed off the contract to be charged bi-weekly and I have set-up an automatic bank draft. All of a sudden few months later, I have charged unauthorized $1,100.00!!?? When I asked for the reason, they said that they have changed their financial system, and the new system shows a balance due. I brought all monthly bank statements for all submitted payments and I refused to pay the unauthorized, the unrealistic charge. The management decided to kick my son out of the daycare facility with no respect, no communications, and no feedback. Overall, it was a very bad experience, and the daycare has no credibility what so ever. I highly DO NOT recommend this gang for anybody unless you don’t care neither about your kids nor your money.

I went here over a decade ago, so it is probably different now, but I thought I would share my experience anyway. We would always do nap time for the age category I was in. I had (and still have) issues sleeping, so I can’t sleep without meditation and I’ve never been able to take naps because of it. The staff would threaten to burn our cots if we didn’t sleep, so that made it more difficult to sleep. I would lie awake for an hour, trying to not breathe too heavily so they would think I was asleep. Another time, I knocked my tooth out on the playground when another girl slammed her head into mine on accident. They took me into the “office” and of course I was crying because it hurt and I wasn’t supposed to have lost a tooth that young. Then they started talking about a doctor, which scared me because of how young I was, and I started crying harder. Crying is average toddler behavior, especially when that toddler is in pain or scared, but they yelled at me to stop crying. The other thing I want to mention is that my sibling also went here. This boy would always throw his shoe at her and most times it would hit her. The staff refused to do anything about it and used the “boys will be boys” excuse instead of teaching him not to do that. They also made my sister change the diapers of the younger kids because they didn’t want to do it themselves. I honestly wish I had told my parents about this sooner, but I just thought this was regular things that should happen because of how young I was. Don’t send your kids here. They may not tell you about everything that happens because it happens so often that your kid might think it’s okay. If you want to raise terrified or aggressive children, this is the place to go. Please heed my warning, because my parents didn’t know until it was too late.

We love Cornerstone! Our 3 & 7 year old were there for about a year, and the only reason we stopped is because we moved. Ms. Nuella was always welcoming as soon as you walked in the door. She made it a point not only to know the children but the parents as well. Our daughter fell in love with Ms. Rosa’s energy and teaching style, and the fact that she always took time out to figure out what she was most interested in. Our 3 year olds vocabulary blossomed from her experience at Cornerstone, as well as her social skills. Our son enjoyed camp field trips with Ms. Diana, daily prayers and bible word searches. Cornerstone also helped my husband and I tremendously by homework being completed each day within the school age program, prior to us picking him up. Every lesson incorporates Gods plan & that is hard to find in a daycare/after school program. If you’re looking for services in the Mt. Vernon area you won’t be disappointed by choosing Cornerstone!

My son was at Cornerstone for just over a year. He was there that long because since it was our first experience with a day care center I had no idea what things should have been like and also at the time couldn’t afford much more. The staff turnover was extremely high. At least 4 or5 teachers/staff left within a year. Regarding cleanliness, within the first few months my son got pink eye and ring worm and there was a notice about pink eye posted his last week there. He’s had no such issues since we left there in late May, not even a cold. My son had behavior issues and we met with the director and teachers several times and this was a constant source aggravation during his entire time there. I was called constantly to pick him up over the course of a few months for reasons that they “couldn’t control him”. They often tried to put me on the phone with him but the volume of kids and screaming in the background was so loud neither of us could hear each other and he eventually became disinterested and hung up or wandered off and the staff that put him on the phone in the first place didn’t seem to be around to step in and pick the phone back up. We were given an ultimatum that if his behavior did not improve, they would terminate care. Luckily his behavior did improve for a short time following behavioral therapy but 5 months or so later we were given the ultimatum again. This time they told me a date that they would terminate care. I was told a certain date that would be his last day but was called 3 days prior to that date and told he could not return the next day. I tried to get my money back for the days I had already paid for in advance that week that he would not be receiving care but was denied and received nothing. The following school he went to suggested contacting Child Find regarding his behavior issues (Cornerstone had never even heard of Child Find, which I find ridiculous if child care is your profession!). Child Find is a special education/early intervention service run by the County. It has since been determined that my son has ADHD and possibly mild ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) likely Asperger’s Syndrome. This explains why he could not tolerate the open floor plan, extreme noise (that my son described as “chaos”) and general lack of knowledge and training by all of the staff, specifically regarding special needs children. They bounced my son around from class to class to whomever could control him that day so I got very little information regarding his daily activities unless I went around to each teacher trying to track down how his day was. Overall they left a very sour taste in my mouth and in my opinion I would avoid enrolling your child there if you have another choice.

Cornerstone Academy is a SCAM!! If you are looking for a professional management and employee, this place is definitely NOT for you. If you have your card on file for automatic payment, expect to get unauthorized charges. We got overcharged/ unauthorized charges many times and every time we hear sorry!! But it is continuing issue. The management is SOOO unprofessional and unfriendly, and they don’t pay a close attention to their duties. My son 3 years old got hurt many times, and all I got is an incident report and “it happens all the time” REALLY!! I would like to give a rudeness Oscar to Linda the director. I feel sorry that I had to put my kid through such a terrible experience.