Inspiration Station Early Learning Center

Reviews 3

DA

Daniel Abel

My daughter went to Inspiration station for over a year and a half. My exwife and I were impressed with the worker in her class. She was very experienced and was great with the kids. For the first couple months the daycare was open it was very interactive and had about 6 per class which was great for the kids. After a couple months the director started pushing all kinds of programs and incentives for her business. My daughters teacher was fired after being there less than a year. Since then her class has had over ten teachers come and go. The turn over at the daycare is so high you barely get to know the staffs name before they either get fired or quit. The small class size went from one teacher for six to two teachers for twenty four. The class stopped learning and is now nothing for more than partially controlled chaos. The class has children running around constantly climbing on furniture or fighting with each other. The past several months I have seen the kids literally beat the snot out of each other. There is zero discipline in any of the classes. The staff at first were great with all of them having experience and working in school on degrees. Now some of the staff barely speak English and my daughters primary teacher was a 22 year old boy with no experience whatsoever. The director at first was always available to talk if there was anything. Now she barely returns calls and wont do any face-to-face communication because shes afraid of confrontation. To hit on this point over the past six months every issue she has responded with emails and was too busy to call or meet with me when I dropped or picked my child up. A serious problem both my exwife and I have had is the director playing us off one another. She would tell one of us one story about an incident and the other a completely different story. The director seems to have issues with men in particular. Any time an issue with another child was brought up her excuse was that the child acted out because "he/she has an overbearing male figure in his/her life". According to the director almost all the children have overbearing and abusive men in their lives. There was also an issue with the directors ability to be impartial. Every time there was an incident with her newly hired staff my child or all the children were lying. No matter what was said or what transpired the children were always lying. Some of the things the staff have said were very adult in tone and content. Im supposed to believe that a five year old has the capacity to understand adult thoughts and concepts but he/she is a natural liar according t the director. The last straw has been that one of staff made very inappropriate comments to the children. When my exwife brought this to the directors attention instead of getting a reassurance this would never happen again, I got a very rude email saying my daughter was no longer enrolled at the daycare and my last check was going to be cancelled; also in the email she called my daughter a liar, again. The unprofessional behavior by the director and staff is astounding at Inspriation Station. Instead of having the director call myself or my exwife and have an adult conversation I get a snotty email. For the $185 a week I paid I wouldve thought I could get a professional phone call from a forty five plus year old director. I would not recommend this facility to anyone, especially to single fathers or divorced parents

JA

James Nestler

About a year and a half ago I got guardianship of my granddaughter. I had been raising her since she was born but obtained legal guardianship then. At that time i made the decision to have her attend a daycare preschool setting. I felt it was in her best interest. I felt the experience would help with meeting her milestones in growing up but also add to her social skills while learning much more than i could teach her alone at home. Since i am semi retired I didnt have to send her but chose to. I looked at almost a dozen schools looking for the right one. Most of the schools were providing adequately for the children s needs but I was looking for the school that went beyond the minimum. When I first contacted Jennifer, she seemed very pleasant. She invited me in to talk about any concerns I might have as well as take a tour of the school. We spoke about child ratios and curriculum just like every other school. I was impressed that Inspiration station was part of the PA STARS program. This program rewards Stars for attaining certain levels of development within the child care facility. At the time Inspiration station had 1 star. Being a new school , having only been open 1 year, that seemed like a good start. Also finding out that each teacher had to have 15 hours of training thru Penn State within their first 3 months also impressed me. And as per the state guidelines every teacher had to have 2500 hours teaching children for Inspiration station to be certified by the state. These were all good things in my "Book". When we went on the tour it impressed me that Jennifer not only knew every childs name but she seemed to know them as individuals not just numbers. Although my granddaughter was going into the 2 year old classroom I was shown all the classrooms and introduced to all of the staff. The classrooms are all staffed by two teachers , not just assistants. The children were each assigned a primary teacher although both teachers interacted with each child without regards to whether the child was in there group. This impressed me very much. After the tour Jennifer invited me to have my granddaughter come for a visit and spend a few hours in the class she would be in. I agreed and it went so well that I had my granddaughter start their on a part time basis at first to acclimate her to the school setting but within a month she was going full time. The school has a unique way for parents to see what their children are doing all day. It is called Precious Status. This app that you can download to your phone lets the school give you updates thru the day on how things are going with your particular child. It lists how long they slept or if they had a dry or wet diaper, how much they ate as well as pictures of your child sent thru out the day. The staff are always willing to talk about the progress of each child and are willing to work with the parents to help the child progress as much as possible. There is so much more I would like to say but I feel you get the picture from what I have written so far. In conclusion, if anyone is looking to put their child in a child care or preschool environment that teaches thru fun activities and where each child matters then I would firmly recommend you contact Jennifer at Inspiration Station

KI

Kim H

I couldn’t be happier with the care my daughter has received at Inspiration Station. She has been attending since she was 12 weeks old and I am regularly amazed by the skills and love they teach her. She’s now 15 months old and does a dance in her car seat when we arrive, runs down the hallway to her classroom, and greets her friends and teachers with a grin. Every day my daughter is exposed to new activities, new skills, and new cultures that I could never provide for her at home. The real-time notifications give me peace of mind while I’m at work and give me a glimpse of her day. Not only is Inspiration Station teaching my daughter, they are teaching me, an unsure new mother who had no idea her baby could do that. I wholeheartedly recommend Inspiration Station to anyone looking for child care.

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