Harvest Christian Academy

Zero Stars – Do NOT Take Your Children to Harvest Christian Academy in Panama City, Florida I would give this place zero stars if I could. My three children attended here at the end of 2024 — ages one, two, and four. To be fair, the one-year-old teacher and the Pre-K teacher were wonderful. They were kind, patient, and did their jobs well. Unfortunately, that’s where the positives end. The two-year-old classroom was a nightmare — especially one teacher in particular, Kayla Day. I personally witnessed her yelling at my child on three separate occasions and grabbing her by the arm and pulling her down to sit. No parent should EVER have to see that. When I brought these concerns to the director — who is also the preacher’s wife — everything was downplayed. Instead of addressing the teacher’s behavior, she suggested my two-year-old “probably has behavioral issues.” My daughter has never had behavioral issues — not before that school, not after that school, and not to this day. She was two years old. Crying at drop-off is normal. Their solution? Put her in timeout for crying. I also addressed the constant yelling at the two-year-olds. I was told that was “normal” and just how they respond. Since when is yelling at toddlers considered normal childcare? The worst incident: my daughter came home and told me the teacher hit her in the head. When I confronted the teacher, she claimed it was “an accident.” My child had a visible gash on her forehead. That is not acceptable in any setting — especially one claiming to be “Christian.” I reported the daycare to ELC and DCF. I’m not sure what came of it. From my experience, this place hides behind religion instead of taking accountability. The final straw? I dropped my kids off one morning and 15 minutes later the director called to tell me it would be their last day because “we can’t seem to satisfy your children’s needs.” No — the problem was the two-year-old teacher, not my children. I was not the only parent who complained about her behavior. They also allow parents to drop off clearly sick children just to keep attendance numbers up. Health and safety did not seem to be a priority. If you care about your child’s emotional and physical well-being, I strongly suggest looking elsewhere. On the other hand, Acorns to Oaks in downtown Panama City is absolutely AMAZING. That place deserves 1000 stars. The difference in professionalism, compassion, and true care for children is night and day. Please do your research before trusting this daycare with your babies. I learned the hard way.

Wonderful childcare. I am very paranoid Mama but I felt very confident in leaving my baby girl here during the day. Great & caring people especially Meagan in baby world, she’s awesome (and seriously deserves a raise) Overall, I always felt safe knowing my daughter was in the hands of the staff here. And though I withdrew her recently to spend more time with her (she’s an infant). I will most definitely be enrolling her again when she’s a little older. 😁

This was not the right fit for my family. We pulled our son out after 3 days. We were provided with no updates regarding our son throughout the day despite multiple requests. We were told the staff is simply too busy to update the app. While I understand, all we requested was information about how he slept and ate so we would know if adjustments needed to be made to his routine when we got home. These requests fell on deaf ears. When we picked him up on his first day, the teacher was unable to tell us anything about his first day - how he ate, how he slept, if he adjusted ok. She hadn't been the teacher responsible for him during the day, and, apparently, his primary teacher didn't think it was important to relay that information to her colleague. Overall, the teachers seemed nice, but there is a general sense of apathy. On the fourth morning, our son was so upset he started hyperventilating. He is only 2. He attended daycare in our prior hometown and never had that kind of reaction. We listened to our boy, and pulled him out immediately. Again, our son was only enrolled for 3 days. When we notified the daycare that he was being unenrolled, we were told we would be billed for an additional 2 weeks. This is unacceptable. I gave the daycare two stars because the teachers seemed kind. But for this, I would have given it one star.

We are about to rebuild our main sanctuary building destroyed by hurricane Michael. It will be bigger and better.

Excellent preschool program. We recently moved our son over to their preschool as he was having some difficulties with his previous preschool teacher. The only thing I can say is I wish we have move him over sooner! He absolutely LOVES it here! It had gotten to the point where he no longer enjoyed going to preschool, and he was acting out at his previous preschool, but ever since we moved him over he has done a complete 180. He enjoys going to school, he loves his teachers, he has a blast with his classmates. He even enjoys completing his homework every Tuesday and Thursday evening. He loves to talk about all the things that he did & learned at school every day. The preschool program and personnel at this location are excellent with children and we couldn't be happier to have our son in their care during the day.