The Growing Tree Academy

Our son has been with TGTA since he was 5 months old. As a first-time mom that didn't think I could trust anyone to take care of our son, The Growing Tree Academy exceeded my expectations. Ms. Regina in the infant room is one of the sweetest caregivers you will ever meet, and has a sharp eye for when the infants are not acting like themselves and may be getting sick. I always appreciated the detailed notes they took on what/when our son ate, napped, dirtied his diaper, etc. He has now moved up to an older classroom, and his teachers are kind, gentle, and patient - yet know how to get the kids to listen just by using the right eye contact and tone of voice. He comes home with new Spanish and English words each day. The tuition cost couldn't be beat when we initially explored other daycare options in the area. Now, you couldn't pay us to go elsewhere! The cameras are a bonus. I love being able to see what my son is up to when I'm really missing him at work. The director and assistant director are marvelous people and excellent at addressing all concerns. They are the initial reason I decided to trust them with the care of our son, and the kind teachers are why I continue bringing him to and from 'school' with peace of mind. Thank you, TGTA, for giving us a great experience every day.

Overall, we are very happy here and will be putting our second in daycare here too. My son is well loved by his teachers and that is the most important thing for me. The only concern for us is that our son is very smart and may need a curriculum (and a more challenging atmosphere) than what he currently gets. However, kids learn best through play and he sure does play!

My daughter attended for about 5 months. Some teachers were nice, but others were extremely rude. One told my husband that when I dropped off my daughter I should “smile more”. They were constantly short staffed, and the babies often went for long periods without being checked. The owner of the facility was never there. There was a strange teacher that would always be eating fast food while handling the children. The last straw was one day I noticed my daughter woke up from her nap and stood in her pack and play for about an hour, waiting for someone to pick her up and change her. She wasnt even yet a year old. When my husband got there to pick her up, and asked for an explanation, the teachers wouldnt even look at him. The baby’s diaper was full and heavy. That was our last day there. I would not recommend this facility to anyone - if you do decide to enroll, you need to keep your eyes glued to the cameras….which really doesnt make it worth it.

The staff at this daycare is kind for the most part. I really wish that the 2/3 year old class would have been more structured as I never actually saw evidence of any sort of real curriculum being carried out other than a lot of coloring. I do believe that my child was extremely bored In this particular class, which I feel accounted for some of the behavior issues we experienced there. Honestly, I just felt like my child was at an typical baby sitter vs an actual school everyday. The kids in this class always ran around rampant, my child included. Another thing was that far too many incidents occured with kids hitting and not getting along and I felt that teachers should have been paying closer attention in order to help prevent them. As a “teacher” you may not be able to catch everything but a lot of things can be prevented, if you’re actually monitoring properly. The child/teacher ratio was actually not bad at all there so a lot of incidents that occurred was a result of teachers simply not paying attention, in my opinion. There were several times that my spouse and I were called to pickup our child for reasons that we were led to believe were way out of control, only to arrive to find the situation very much under control and that the out of control issue would be “crying to much” or a simple nose bleed. This came off to us as lazy with no regard for our careers or time. Our child did have some behavioral issues as before mentioned, however even if our child would have been an absolute angel, he still would not have benefited much from being there as structure and curriculum are very much lacking. If those two areas were improved, I’m sure that this daycare would be really nice. I feel that this daycare definitely has great potential under the right management. The only reason that we did not remove our child from this daycare early on, is that we did absolutely feel that our child was safe there and we also knew going in that it would be only temporary and did not want to move our child more than absolutely necessary.

My three kids attend this daycare and they love it. They have small class sizes and the staff takes such good care of them. Tuition is due monthly or you can split them up into 2 payments. They offer sibling discounts. They are very communicative via the Remind app and they have been extremely flexible with our 5 year old’s childcare, as she is enrolled in after school care and for the occasional “drop in.”