Ymca - Heatherwood

Initially, my daughter took two months to adjust to daycare. She stayed for 4 months in the toddler program and there are no reports of misbehaving with other children, despite one of her classmates biting her twice. After four months, she transitioned smoothly into the preschool program, and for two months, everything seemed to be going well. However, an incident involving her Assistant Teacher (A.T.) drastically affected her behavior. After waking up from her nap, my daughter was sitting by the window when she was allegedly forcefully dragged by the A.T. because she did not immediately respond to her. This caused my daughter to panic and wiggle free, which led to the A.T.'s chain falling apart. From that moment on, whenever the A.T. was in the classroom (without her trusted teachers in the classroom), we began receiving frequent behavior complaints about her. The teacher even suggested that we "not send our daughter to daycare," and made statements about "they are not being responsible if she put something in her mouth that wasn’t meant to be eaten", implying my daughter was putting everything into her mouth. However, another teacher mentioned that she had not observed any misbehavior when she was present, which has made me question the integrity of the staff and the handling of the situation. After this incident, I raised my concerns with the daycare director. Unfortunately, she claimed that nothing came to her knowledge, and no action had been taken regarding the matter. From that point on, we received nearly daily complaints about my daughter’s behavior, which created significant tension and stress within our family. While some teachers were supportive, the lack of accountability and unresolved behavioral issues left us frustrated and disappointed with the overall experience.

In January 2023, I just found out I was pregnant. I toured and I got myself on the waitlist. I have worked in daycares and I am a teacher so I asked so many questions and they could answer them all. I did the same with at least a dozen other daycares in the area. Their quality of care seems okay. Very standard for a center. I have heard great things about their prek program from my friends. I have been on the waitlist since then and they told me I might get a spot after May 2025, over two years after I got on the waitlist. I have emailed or called twice to ask about my status and was replied with annoyance and no compassion. All other daycares I followed up with have been so kind and compassionate with I email them to ask about my status. The main issue is the price increase. In less than two years, they have increased their price by over $600 a month. Of all the daycares I have toured, none had a price increase of over $100 a month. Over $600 a month increase is not the norm and it is wayyyy more than cost of living increases. If anyone is considering enrolling here I would tell them to have patience with the waitlist and be prepared for major price hikes every year.

My child went to this daycare facility for two years and over that timespan we saw many staff rotate out. Almost none of the original staff my child met when he was one year old remained by the time we left when he was three and a half. One former staff member stated to me that there are many practices that go on amongst the staff that are either not legal or against policies they have in place. As for my own experience, there are a couple of teachers here who are lovely and wonderful with the kids, but overall there is a lack of communication between front office directors and the teachers in the classrooms. There is also bad communication between staff and parents. We ultimately chose to leave because of a widespread lack of respect shown for the children and an incident where my child was yelled at (and brought to tears) in front of me during a morning drop off. No disciplinary action was taken besides having a conversation with the teacher in question. I had to be the one to ask for and schedule a meeting and when I met with the directors there was some sentiment defending the teacher’s actions (and questioning my story regardless of the fact that I had been standing right there at the time and neither director had been present) although apologies were issued to me. Aside from that incident I have personally witnessed my child in the rain without a jacket, snow without gloves or a hat, I’ve watched him fall on the playground without anyone noticing or responding to his cries SEVERAL times, seen him try to ask a teacher something with no response, he has had massive blisters on his feet when they put his shoes on with no socks to play outside, and he was written up for several disciplinary issues involving other kids where the teachers and staff could not tell me what led up to it because they were not paying attention. Perhaps if they had been the issue could have been avoided instead of my child being written up and then disciplined harshly. They have also asked me for ideas about how to handle situations with him at school and I have written up lengthy responses with many ideas. They never replied to the messages or implemented the majority of the suggestions. On top of this, they host parenting class events which teach parents and also staff the best ways to go about discipline with their children and avoiding aggressive behaviors. When I asked if either of the directors had attended the latest class they both said no. I asked if any other teachers took notes I could see and they said that no one had. They just expect parents to attend and they as a school aren’t following those same practices they promote. Additionally, I was never notified that the behavioral specialists on staff kept reports about my child’s behavioral “issues.” I was only made aware such reports existed after a year and a half of being there when the topic of my child getting a diagnosis for autism was raised at which point they gave me a deadline to get him diagnosed by. This was the first I heard of it and I never had access to any of those reports before or after the fact. If all this was not enough, since leaving the school we have asked for reimbursement for the month we did not attend before fully pulling out of the school as we were told such reimbursement would be made available to us, in addition to sick days we missed. We still have not received that reimbursement. We left months ago. I have to say that I left my job to be home with my child which has many challenges but by doing so I have seen a marked improvement in his social skills and in his behavior and emotional maturity. I believe that the daycare did more harm than good overall and would not recommend it to anyone unless they have no other option which I understand is often the case with busy working parents. I felt like I was unable to take him out of the program for a long time but ultimately made many sacrifices to make it work because I felt so strongly about this place being detrimental to his emotional well-being.

My daughter has been here since infants room! She has has amazing teachers! This a great place for your family!

There's a guy who hangs out by the children's playground. Every night, he shines a flashlight into my bedroom.