Riverwood Pre-Elementary

1/10. What I thought would be a nice fit turned out to be the worse. Tabitha (secretary) who handles all the money has an attitude problem (who has also had plenty of complaints & nothing has changed.) The owner (Mrs. Elizabeth) & Tabitha does not communicate. One will tell you one thing & the other will tell you the opposite. They try to get over on you for money. They cut certain parents a discount but for the ones they don’t know they try to get over on them for money. I will give one start because the daycare was clean but they do not learn kids anything. Every time I walked in daycare teachers on their phone instead of watching the kids. Never walked in to see the daycares interacting with the kids. My child has actually regressed since starting this daycare. This daycare has severely went down hill since new owners took over.

As a few have mentioned the change in management absolutely ruined the confidence and trust I had in this daycare. I, along with several other parents, have had significant concerns and anytime they've been mentioned, little to nothing has been done or in some instances the owner kicked the kids out over these concerns. Evidently they've had issues with parents reporting them to DSS as they made us sign a document stating your child will be terminated if you report them to the state without speaking to them first. I took this as an intimidation tactic and i'm not sure this is even legal. They changed the prices multiple times without written notifications, just a sticky note on the inside wall - which also goes against state policy. My check got "lost" and if I hadn't had a receipt I wouldn't have had proof that I wrote the check. Since January (when management changed) the teacher turnover rate has been significant and almost every single day I came to get my child I would see several "teachers" sitting on their phones as opposed to interacting with the kids. I felt the need to wait for my son to leave before leaving this review in fear of retaliation towards him or potentially towards me by randomly "terminating" our slot. I used to recommend this place as both of my kids attended from babies - Pre-k, however I no longer feel comfortable recommending this daycare to any other parent. I will say the facility is nice and playground is shaded.

The new owners (Jan 2024) of this daycare caused so many issues that many parents and staff are leaving. Major issues are listed below. -new managememt made a habit out of either lying or not telling parents of new policies (to include increased tuition costs). This included changing costs without any notice, then giving out paperwork suggesting that they had notified parents at the beginning of the month. They changed prices 3 times in Jan 2024. -changed the safety procedure the previous owners had, and unlocked the front door. There is no one challenging people who enter to grab children, or verifying IDs. -Ratio was a problem due to the staff shortage, and parents were helping teachers in the morning because they were over ratio. My disappointment in this place is so much more because this used to be a place I could trust my kid at, and just a shift in management changed that for our family.

My child sustained 5 injuries including bite marks and scratches here over a span of 27 business days (See the 4 picture collage below). You can also look at my Yelp review if you have trouble seeing the pictures. The last picture, which is unrelated to my child's injuries, is a screenshot of NC Division of Child Development and Early Education's visit summary of May 2, 2017. This record, which is publicly available, says "Rule Violated: Children were not adequately supervised at all times. In space #2, adequately [sic] supervision was not provided when a child was bitten two times in a day." Update (Jan 29, 2019): I see that a staff member at Riverwood gave a 5 star rating to this business 6 days ago (see the review below). I believe this counts as a review manipulation. Fellow moms, there ARE good daycares out there where you child will be safe and well taken care of. Since my kid moved to a new daycare 3 months ago, he hasn't even gotten a scratch. I hope you find a good daycare facility for you. Do your research and ask other moms.

The experience my family had with this daycare was very disheartening. I’m not sure how this owner thinks it’s okay to run a business this way. But I was amazed at the lack of professionalism from the owner. My spouse was told that my daughter would have a spot and instead of just being honest about the spot no longer being available the owner lied and said to “just tell her I’m in a meeting”. Then it changed to “just tell her there isn’t a spot anymore”. Then it changed to “tell her to call back at 2”. Of course she didn’t know my wife would hear everything she was saying. The fact that she couldn’t just be honest blows my mind. Then when she was confronted about what she said, she was very rude about it. Don’t be upset when you get called out for your lies. Own up to it and do better.