The Learning Bee

We had a couple years of positive experiences but something has changed dramatically recently. I could detail my many minor frustrations with the lack of communication and what seems to be intentional deceit with moving students between classes without notifying parents, but I feel the two major incidents that caused us to leave will speak for themselves:

In the last week and a half my daughter was first directly given a known allergen by a staff member, causing an ER visit and extremely stressful day for my whole family. To be clear, this was not an accidental exposure - she was handed a cup of milk despite having a well-documented allergy to milk.

Yesterday, my daughter was sent home with dried feces caked on the back of her shirt from a BM that occurred at 10 AM. She was walking around all day with a significant amount of feces on her. Based on the fingerprints and smudges she was touching it frequently, so it is fair to assume that everything she touched and even the other children she interacted with were exposed to the potential bacteria and illnesses known to be in feces.

When I called to address both issues their response essentially amounted to 'mistakes happen.' Obviously this was extremely upsetting given these two incidents so close together, which clearly indicates a larger issue. After a tense but professional phone call with the owner I was told my daughter was no longer allowed to attend, effective immediately. Luckily we were already making plans since we didn't feel she was safe there anyway, but I was still appalled that rather than bear responsibility they chose to dismiss it.

I am truly fearful for every student in that center. I don't know what it is happening but there is a clear lack of appropriate management and it is putting kids' well being at risk.

<div>My son has been in the 4/5 room at The Learning Bee since Oct 2011, he looks forward to going to school to learn from his excellent teachers and to play with all his new friends. He especially enjoys the weekly science walks, the "Fun Bus" and all the other special activities the center and his teachers plan to enrich the childrens' education. I have found the owner, director, assistant director as well as the other teachers at the center I interact with on a regular basis to be friendly, helpful and loving towards the children. I would highly recommend The Learning Bee to parents who are looking to find child care for their children ages 6 weeks through school age including before and after school care as well as a special summer program. You will find they have an excellent curriculum including teaching simple sign language in the Infants I &amp; II classes all the way to the special field trips the school age children take during the summer to enrich their education. C Culpepper (I've noticed that most of the negative reviews where from 2009-2010, apparently the center took those complaints seriously and made the necessary changes!)</div>

Where do I start. We had our daughter at The Learning Bee from 6 weeks to 10 months. We've had a myriad of difficulties from a "lost" cash payment that we were never reimbursed for, staff not prepared the first day we brought in our daughter (they apparently weren't notified she was coming), several instances where we had to hunt down someone in the morning so our daughter could be watched because both Infant rooms were empty, two occassions where staff went much too far is "diagnosing" our child instead of adhering to the recommendations of our pediatrician, and us coming in and finding our daughter ALONE, crying in the middle of the floor with no staff in sight. We would have let all that slide without writing a review, but then the center wrote an email a week before we were scheduled to move our daughter to another place (because despite our constant complaints, nothing was done) that they were kicking her out. No notice, nothing. Despite the fact that we adhered to their 4 weeks leave rule (we gave them 6 weeks to plan). When I told her it was unfair that they give us one day's notice after we gave them 6 weeks, the OWNER replied that she didn't care. Now what kind of person does that?!
I realize we may be protective, but we are not incompetent parents, nor are we incapable of telling the difference between appropriate boundries versus neglect or apathy by direct care workers.
In the 10 months our daughter was with The Learning Bee, my husband and I have encountered at LEAST 10-12 different evening workers - some we had known, others we had never met before, and some one-offs that we have not seen since. In addition, our daughter has been found by us on more than one instance sitting alone, crying in the middle of the floor, with the workers so eager to 'close' the room that they didn't feel it necessary to continue to provide care to the kids left. Finding my daughter scared, alone, and sobbing while a worker I've never met is too busy folding laundry or wiping down the changing station to "deal" with a crying infant is something I simply cannot tolerate.
The only saving grace to that whole place is the Infant 1 teacher, Glenna. However, she can't be there all day, and what's the use of having your infant create a bond with her if they're only going to move them to a room where the teachers neglect them.