West Olympia Head Start

This place has been so good to our family. My daughter is almost 4 and this will be her 2nd year attending. When she first started she could barely talk, and what she could say was really only understood by myself and her dad. Now she is counting to as high as 16! She is talking in full sentences and they even have helped with the referral process, working along side the school district to help her get the speech therapy she needs. She has a 10 month old brother that has been signed up to go since birth! Every morning we go in they are extactic to see him and check in whenever they can. There is nearly always this sense of calm within the room that you just don't see at daycares. My daughter loves her teachers so much... She needed to attend summer daycare due to summer break, I am not over exaggerating that she asked to go back, every, single, day lol. She has her own thermos for water that they give her, they send food home with the kids every Friday (a program to make sure they are getting enough to eat, even at home), They brush their teeth after breakfast.... I can go on and on about how amazing this place is. Does my daughter come home filthy, exhausted, and as happy as can be? Yes, Because she played her little heart out and had the time of her life, does she get bumps and bruises? Yes, and sometimes we are all so busy it doesn't get mentioned. However, I know if I ask about it and let them know my concern they will get to the bottom of it. I can honestly say I have never felt as though my daughter was unsafe, and this peaceful environment is what made it possible for me to go to school myself! Such an amazing program!

A brief summary of the long post: although I’ve had good experiences at other head starts, & I really liked the director & other ladies here at the sound harbor head start , I feel obligated to WARN PARENTS about the UNSAFE situations we’ve experienced there in the last year. Most recently: my 4 yr old (almost5) started a second year here mid September. On day 5 attending, 30 minutes before pick up I got a text message saying my child was “scratched under the eye by a peer”…meh kids right? When I arrived at pick up it was very busy so I didn’t ask about what happened. The teacher said they had washed it with soap & water& gave an ice pack. paint is all over his face around his scratches so unsure how they could have just washed his open wounds 30 minutes ago, they aren’t painting right before pick up (my son also said they didn’t wash his face). Immediately after leaving I asked my son what happened, he said he was bitten, I hadn’t heard this &only saw scratches so im confused & telling him no you got scratched & he’s looking very upset &sad. At home I give him a bath to get the paint off, & discover a bite mark on his thigh, the bite was so hard there were 3 clear teeth marks bruised into him. Along with another scratch on the opposite side on his neck & another on his back near his armpit & a good size newly developing bruise on his lower back. Now I’m realizing my child wasn’t just scratched he was attacked, no wonder he looked so sad, & I’m angry cuz this little one is MY WHOLE WORLD. I take photos & send the school a note saying he was also bitten & inquiring if he did something awful to this other kid that caused the kid to attack. The message I got back was I don’t know I’ll ask his teachers tomorrow. The following day I was still upset&kept him home.I messaged the school to say he wouldn’t be in all I got was “thanks for letting us know”. The following morning, now 40hrs later, i still havent heard back from the school. I decide to message them and withdraw him. I immediately get a message back saying the day before they had taken all these steps to “ensure this incident doesn’t happen again”. Well I had posted on fb asking for preschool recommendations & I heard from 2 other people who’s children attend there. One mom saying her daughter is coming home scratched & bitten almost daily. Another mom in our class said that literally the first school day,after the director told me about all these steps they’d taken to ensure safety, she watched a child full on attacked a teacher hitting her in the face. Last year: there were several things that concerned me that have stuck with me & popped back in my head while considering weather to give them another chance. 1) he injured his ankle& couldn’t walk for several days & nobody knew what happened. 2) December/January ish at pick up I immediately noticed the whole toe of his thick insulated winter boot was torn off & just gone. These were super thick rubber I don’t even know how that could possibly happen. I asked the teacher she stated she “didn’t even notice” so how long was my kid playing outside in freezing temps with wet toes exposed? 3) the constant issue with not having teachers, constant class cancelations for several months until they finally cancelled school for the rest of the year in April, constant last minute busses won’t be picking up texts (didn’t affect us) for parents that have a job to go to this WILL NOT BE RELIABLE CARE. 4) in the last weeks before they closed his class down in April the teachers sometimes looked on the verge of mental breakdown. one teacher told me kids were climbing on top of book cases doing all kinds of things they aren’t suppose to but because of policy they “couldn’t do anything “. I told her if my kid is doing anything like that I will come right over and get him down myself. 5) I was told by a teacher that unfortunately my kid had made friends with “the bad kid” , I know who this kid is and he seemed to likely have some developmental issues so labeling him “the bad kid” is rather unprofessional as a teacher.

This place is terrible. Being a single mom, i worked so hard to get my daughter into this school. I thought it would help with moving up to grade school next year but the people and their system are terrible! My daughter went here for about a month. We ended up moving to a new place still being on the west side and my sift for work ended up switching to early mornings and some time nights so i wasnt able to drop her off all the way across town at her original bus stop because i also ride the bus and dont drive. So after calling everyday to try to see if they could switch the bus to be closer to my house they were no help. Everyday always saying they would call me back and never did they ended up calling me to tell me the had to take her out of the school because she had missed to many days. This place is so unprofessional! All they care about is money and not the kids! I would defiantly take your kids elsewhere if you dont want problems like this happening.

My daughter has been going to this school for a number of months and she has really grown during this experience. Everyone from the teachers, director, and all the staff has been incredibly kind & professional!!! Very happy with this awesome school!!!