Growing up in Apex in the early 90's my single mother needed an affordable daycare that could care for infants at 15 weeks (me). She enrolled me and my sister into La Petite Academy since it catered to her needs. I grew up in this facility with my sister starting in 1993 and leaving in early 2001 to move onto a year round program. I haven't been to the facility since 2002 but it was updated at that point and usually by the instructors themselves. I give 3 stars because of some issues we encountered then, for example, my sister witnessed a teacher pull me up by just one arm when I was 4 or so and reported it to my mother; turns out that same instructor pulled a young boy's arm out of his socket earlier and was reprimanded and never took that action again. The bullying wasn't dealt with at the time but it was also a different era, where children weren't coddled every second of the day. I had mainly negative experiences during my upbringing but La Petite provided a fun after school place away from a troubled home life where I had plenty of friends and activities around me. We always had a piñata party out on the basketball courts when I was younger and rarely watched television. La Petite puts on a graduation when you come out of pre-K which was always rewarding and well planned. The instructors seemed to have prided themselves when I was growing up and , like mentioned before, went out of their way to provide fun activities and places for those activities to take place. An example of an instructor going out of their way is Mr. Shawn... He built risers for us to perform on and got a whole chest of hats, boas, play microphones, and props for us and to make it seem cool he put up Destiny's Child, Dixie Chicks, and Korn posters in the trailblazers area. That memory sits well with me. Another great prgram they offered aside from before and after school are and bussing to several area schools, was the summer camp. They always had hats and shirts to give out with a standardized program. We went to the pool every week and went on frequent field trips to local parks, farms, and museums. So all in all La Petite turned out a graduate of NC State who had a better childhood and quite frankly can defend themself and hold their ground. I'm not sure how the daycare runs these days, if there are carnivals, castle playgrounds, a kitchen next to the toddler room, a family like staff, and a miniature city play ground but what it was was good for the price payed, educational, and real.
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