The Early Childhood Learning Ctr, Ywca Of Ulster

Our 1 yr old started at daycare here in August, about 2 months ago, and we’ve been very impressed. All the teachers are wonderful and clearly care about the kids. They keep us updated throughout the day and share photos via the app. Tori just started as the new education director and is doing a wonderful job - she is on energized and on top of things, and has already made big improvements to the program. The kids get to do fun fall activities like painting pumpkins, apple stamping, and going on a fall field trip. They eat great lunch every day from a local catering business. Beyond being grateful just to have reliable childcare, I feel like my son is getting a lot of enrichment from coming to this program. Thank you all!

We enrolled my son in their preschool program this year and we couldn’t be happier for him. He is thriving socially, linguistically, and emotionally. His teachers work so hard to create engaging and play-based lessons (they made apple pies last week!) and communicate well with us. We highly recommend this school!

In the four years I've been sending my child here, I've seen a real decline at this place and families deserve a heads up. There is a lack of care from the leadership that has made it a really chaotic environment, and we have dealt with a ton of strange disconcerting stuff that you would not see at a well functioning child care facility. Staff turnover is out of control, I think my child likely had over twenty different teachers in their classroom this year, and some of our favorite teachers were fired or forced to quit for dubious at best reasons. Concerns of racism from families and staff are dismissed by the leadership, in obvious contradiction to the YWCA's "end racism" slogan. The place has received grants towards renovations and staff pay increases, and has not made good on their stated commitments. In fact there was no outdoor play area for the kindergarten readiness class this entire school year. Kids images got broadcast on Spectrum NY1 TV without families' consent. And for years, an unleashed, unsupervised dog would be allowed to wander the halls without any heads up to or permission from parents-- in a facility that cares for infants. There are a lot of awesome teachers that have come through this place and I hope a change of leadership happens so that it can go back to being a positive contributor to our community. People need quality child care and this place has the potential to be great. But that's not possible with the current leadership.

I want to share my experience and let people know what’s going on at YWCA Magic Circle school in Kingston. This used to be an incredibly well run program that was extremely sought after. We spent years on the waiting list to get in. We finally got in last fall and things are not what they used to be and at e getting worse. The CEO Athena who came in 2 years ago is the reason. To start, since entering the school in October the playground was closed “due to safety concerns.” It took months for the administration to give the parents a straight answer on why. Then they said they were going to get the problem fixed and redo the playground. 2 years ago they received a grant for $50k to redo the playground but never did. Then Athena sent a message about resurfacing and asking for monetary donations. The only outdoor time the preschool gets were weather pending short walks around town. Towards the end of winter after not hearing any update, many parents starting asking about the playground and when it would be fixed/redone. Finally after many ignored messages and “we don’t have an answer right now” they told us they contracted a company to do the playground and they would have it done by May 1. Come mid April and not only were there no voluntary updates, but there was no sign of any construction on the playground. Finally towards the end of April they told us the design had been approved and now they need to sent it to the engineers to build it. Their newest completion date is September 1. The wonderful teachers do their best with what they have and try to take the kids to the church field nearby to run around but it’s not nearly enough. Also there is something shady going on with funds. Athena has raised the tuition price 2 times in the last year saying that it was so staff could get well deserved raises but the teachers have confirmed they have never gotten any raises. Another thing is many of the beloved teachers have been fired and all of them have been non white. Many teachers/staff have also quit and told parents that it’s because they have felt uncomfortable and experienced racism from other staff. When brought to Athena’s attention she told them it wasn’t racism they were experiencing, it was predjudice. A bunch of parents from the school gathered signatures to remove Athena and asked for a meeting eith the board. It was a zoom with over a dozen parents, current staff and past staff who all voiced their concerns, and personal negative experiences with Athena (including her raising her voice at parents, mistreating teachers, lying and racism). The board said they took our concerns very seriously and would respond asap - after more than 2 months of no communication the board came back saying they are not removing Athena. The last thing that happened is the app they use to communicate to the parents and post the children’s activities/photos throughout the day is not being used. They said they had to sign out all the teachers from the app because a staff member’s work phone was lost and they needed to do it for privacy concerns but somehow it tool them 3 weeks to get it back up (the other classes were all up and running within a couple of days). We finally got it back for a few days and then they needed to take the class’s phone to work on technical issues and 4 days later it’s still not back. Aside from the shady finances, no playground and loss of wonderful and competent staff, the administation is awful at communicating. They will literally ignore your messages and if you confront them in person they will say oh we just don’t have an answer yet! Or “I was just about to message you back!” It’s beyond frustrating and we are very sad to have to leave what was once a great school. We are unrolling our son at this end of this month. Parents beware

We feel so lucky that we were able to get our daughter into the infant daycare here. Everyone who works there - not just the teachers - greet her by name and show that they are happy to see her when we arrive... and my daughter loves being there! The teachers keep track of each baby's milestones and take the time to talk with parents about what they observe. Very helpful and supportive environment.