Our son started at Goddard as his first daycare experience at 18 months old. This was April 2014. We are not new parents. We have 3 children and have experienced day cares with other children in the past. This daycare was horrible. We started off in the ""monkey room"". We never knew who the teachers were. We finally spoke to the director who told us the lead teacher had (after our first day) taken a leave of absence. At day 3 my son got hand foot and mouth. I'm a nurse so I know things are contagious and passed around like crazy at day cares, but we thought maybe he was exposed previously and had not been told otherwise. We returned to the daycare a week later with a doctors note to make the staff aware incase we exposed other kids, just to be told "" yea that's been going around here."" We asked why we weren't made aware and it was swept under the rug. Apparently kids were returning to school before they were cleared by the doctor and the staff was aware when we started of this. My husband also came in early one day just to walk in when a teacher was putting her hands on my child and forcing him to the ground. That same teacher once again seen by my husband during nap time sitting and chatting with another staff member while my son sat on his mat and was crying to the point of shaking. The two teachers jumped up to help when my husband walked in. Last but not least we had a new baby and kept updating the director of time getting closer to delivery. Once it was about a week till delivery we pulled out my son. I called to let the director know our last day was the 8th of that month. I was told we needed to put it in writing. So, I emailed that our last day would be the 8th and we were paid up till the 15th. ( we always paid on the 1st and 15th.) I didn't hear anything else and didn't expect to. We had our baby and ended up at children's NICU. Once discharged I was going through my email and saw a bill from Goddard and a note that said they had left multiple messages on our phone. We had not gotten a call or message. I emailed them immediately and my husband went to the school to talk with them. They said we did not give them 30 days notice and we owed the rest of the month ( 15th-1st) and 30 days. We made them aware on the 8th and we were paid up till the 15th. Apparently when we started at the daycare we signed saying we would give 30days notice. We were not given a copy of this nor did it say this in our handbook we still had at home from when we started. We asked at that point for a meeting with the owner. Two weeks later we got an email from the owner saying we were required to pay them by the next day. So we didn't get the courtesy of even a phone call. The money wasn't the issue. It was the lack of communication. We had been talking about our delivery and false alarms with the director for months and yet she could have mentioned us putting in writing. We could have given them six months notice in writing if we had known. Then the rude emails from the owner stating she wouldn't meet with us because she wanted everything in writing. Primrose across the street from Goddard has a lengthy wait list. Odd since Goddard doesn't and Primrose cost more. What does that tell you. This place only kept my son alive and that is the only reason they got 1 star at all. Oh if you work regular days Monday-Friday you don't want to use this daycare. They are closed on major holidays like July 4th, Several days around Thanksgiving, and a week for Christmas. Who gets a week off at Christmas to take care of their kids because the daycare closed. That's just ridiculous. They also close random days for teacher in services. Most days care do this evenings or part of a weekend day to update CPR/first aid training. This just doesn't work well if you need child care while you work.
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