Play & Learn Early Childhood Center

Reviews 3

AL

Alison Evans

I toured the infant and older infant rooms of this center today. The infant room was where I was looking to place my son who is 6 months old. There is no way that I would ever let him attend there after the tour. First off, when you enter the center, it is not secured at all. We waited by the front counter for a few minutes with no one to help us, and we could have went anywhere we wanted in the center without being questioned at that point. Finally the assistant director came up, a young girl with a bull type nose ring, different than what I would be expecting from a child care director, but we decided to go with the tour. The first impression of the center was unfortunately the horrible smell. It was a terrible smell that you could not miss. My 7 yr old accompanied us and decided to wait at the desk area while we looked at the infant room down the hall. The door to the infant room has a sign asking everyone to please remove your shoes, so I did, which left me barefoot. The assistant director however, just walked in with her tennis shoes on, right after I stood outside the infant door and I asked her if people coming in need to remove their shoes or do they use shoes covers, she answered that everyone has to take their shoes off, and then walked right into the room with her shoes on! I was shocked, but not as much as I was with the state of that room. It was FILTHY!! The floors felt dirty and damp to my feet on the carpeted area. The tiny kitchen area was much, much worse! The floors were littered with crumbs and dirt. It was about 11 am when we toured, and none of the four 6 month old babies in the room eat in the kitchen area I was told, so therefore those crumbs and mess were not from a busy day of baby feeding! The floors were gross and the walls were filthy with visible food and other things stuck to them. There were missing baseboards in the kitchen area and play area. The highchairs, which according to the assistant director are not where the current babies are being fed, have had the padding from them completely removed, and not replaced, they were dirty and sticky. They didnt look as if they had even been wiped down in a very long time. There were four 6 month old babies there when I came. Three of them were in bouncers/swings, one was being held by the "teacher" while having a bottle. The teachers bowl of food was sitting next to her on the floor as she was clearly eating her lunch while trying to take care of the four babies. The toys, which looked old and not very clean were all piled into a round thing in the middle of the carpet. No toys were out for the kids to play with, no Boppy pillows out for them to sit with, they were all stacked up behind the rocking chair. The three kids in the bouncers/swing were just basically vegged out in their containment devices. It was very sad. They were all of age to be able to engage and play with toys, explore on the floor, practice sitting, crawling etc. However, with the filthy floors, they were probably better off where they were. After viewing the infant room, my 7 year old came to join me, he said because he could not stand the smell that was by the front entrance anymore. I couldnt blame him. I asked the assistant director about the smell, and she said she couldnt smell anything. That was even worse, she didnt even realize the center smelled absolutely horrendous. It was time for us to go. There was no point in wasting anymore time on a tour of a place I would never, ever take my baby to. I am not a nitpicking person...I am a clean person, and expect a daycare center to be clean. You expect children to make messes throughout the day, but this place was just gross, this was not from a fun filled day of play. This was long time cleaning neglect!

XA

Xan E

Do not take your child here, for any reason. This is the nastiest place I have ever taken my child to. I understand that in the Marshalltown-Ames area there arent that many options for daycare but this would be a decision you regret. My child was dropped of in October 2015 by her uncle just a few minutes after 7am. I called to ask if and when she would be fed and was told that it "was not the responsibility of the daycare to ensure children are fed". That is a direct quote from management. For some reason the tone of the front desk had me ill at ease and I drove over to bring in food to feed my daughter. I did not tell them I was coming. I arrived to find my daughter with a full diaper, eyes blood-shot, nose running, and crying while three of their staff stood around chatting, ignoring her. I was so traumatized by that sight that I just picked her up and asked for management. I also asked why her diaper was full and her eyes blood-shot. They told me they did not any diapers for her. Their diaper policy is clearly written on the wall "Parents are charged $1 for every diaper that the center has to supply if the childs supply runs out". I asked why they did not just change her diaper and charge me. She had no response. The most infuriating thing is that I had supplied a full box of diapers and wipes along with a change of clothes. When I told her that, she went to my daughters assigned cubby and brought the box of diapers and wipes. I asked her again why they did not change her diaper with all the supplies obviously with them and she asked me to leave their premises if I "did not like the quality of the care they provide". Again that is a direct quote. I then asked her if she considered that an appropriate response to my question, at which point she was so flustered she knocked a vase of water over her computer keyboard. No apologies, no remorse. They are quite disgusting and I am seriously considering suing this company or at the very least reporting them to the Iowa Department of Human Services.

GH

Ghinwa Alameen

The most annoying thing for us was having a new person in the infant room almost everyday. My baby was 8 month when he started going there and he just could not adapt to having a new face everyday (sometimes more than one new face a day). The manager just wanted to satisfy the infant/caretaker quota. She sometimes moved babies from infant room to room of older kids for that reason (without notifying us!). Can you imagine removing an already-scared kid from his room to a totally new environment and friends just randomly. This happened often especially at the end of work day when they did not want to have a person taking care of only two kids, so they would move them to the other room. I thought were dealing with human babies here, not sheep! As for cleanliness and food, the infant room looked mediocre. They said they washed the toys once a day, but of course my baby got very sick a week after he started going there. The play area in the infant room was extremely small that a crawling baby could crawl it in few moves! It felt like a cage for the poor kids. I also noticed very little interaction with the babies from the caretakers. They would feed and change them and put them on the floor to play until the next diaper change time comes. This is not what an 8 month baby needs. In the couple of times I looked from the door, I saw the caretaker sitting on the floor next to the kids and just doing nothing!! We stopped going to Play and Learn after a month. BTW, I once overheard a teacher rebuking older kids in the center. I could not see the teacher nor the kids, but my guess they are about 6-8 years old. I heard none of the kids, only the teacher was going on and on about how bad that kid was. He was really insulting and cruel!

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