Growing Tree Day Care & Learning Center

Reviews 3

RO

Robert Temple

From my own experience, this is not a Daycare for someone that needs a Daycare to maintain their employment. To comment on another posters review: Mike has a deep voice and has never been disrespectful in any way to my wife or me personally. Mike appears to be the day-to-day operations person while his wife Susan is more the “decision maker”. Both have their roles there from my own observations, but neither has ever been disrespectful. The rooms are too small. They may meet Keystone and DHS requirements, but with toys, tables, storage, and additional persons that are not children, the room seems tight. There are laws on the books in other venues that require cats in a home to have more square footage than DHS requirements. If you have the chance to visit, really think about space, and visualize your child being in a room of that size for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. Culling the herd. During the winter I would estimate we would get a call every other week to take one of our children home because they had a fever exceeding 101 degrees. This makes maintaining a normal job nearly impossible unless you have a very forgiving employer. After these calls were mounting and becoming more common, my wife took our oldest child to the pediatrician immediately after the Daycare diagnosed him with a fever in excess of 101 degrees; the Daycare and DHS requires them to stay home for 24-hours at a minimum (2-Daycare days). The pediatrician stated there was nothing wrong with him. A few days later I received another call that the same child again had a fever over 101 degrees and he would be required to stay home for at least two days again. I was prepared this time with an FDA approved calibrated head scanning and ear thermometer (iProven DMT-116A). When I arrived less than 20-min later, I pulled my scanner out and it had a reading of 98.5 degrees. Both forehead and ear were pretty close (+/- 0.4) to being the same. I asked for them to use their scanner. The teachers stated it was in another room. I asked if they could get it so we can see what his current temperature was on their thermometer. They could not find it; very odd. I stated each time they called I will be bringing my own thermometer to make sure there were no inconsistencies between what my pediatrician was telling me and what they were telling me. From that date forward I never received a call that my child had a fever. Was culling the herd a management directive to maintain the student teacher ratio or was this done autonomously by the teachers. If it was done autonomously it would raise question over control of their employees and ultimately control of the children under their care. I guess I will never know… The straw that broke the camel’s back was a call from Children and Youth. No one likes this type of call. We, the parents were not being investigated; the Daycare was. From what little information we could extract something at the Daycare was witnessed or observed by a “must reporter”. Presumably a State worker. Again, I don’t know the details and Children and Youth will not give any statements. Founded or unfounded at this point it makes no difference. The time had come to ignore the Keystone rating system and stop this cycle. It’s time to find another Daycare. Two stars for convenience and location.

AN

Ana Temple

This is a four keystone (star) Daycare. This means they meet the State criteria and have entered into their program to meet those requirements. This and location is why my family had chosen to use this Daycare. Unfortunately, our experience was less than satisfactory while paying around $15,000.00 per year (combined) for two children ages 2 and 3. The one to six State ratios are the minimum requirements for a Daycare. The State also believes that $7.25 an hour is a wage that will sustain a person’s financial security. Best practices may not be to use the State minimums, but to use due diligence on deciding what is an appropriate staff size for each class. If you have planned to use this Daycare, you’ll understand the above within the first six months. One of my children is high functionally delayed. The State is excellent in providing care for disabled children. I am happy to say that since his first diagnosis, with State intervention, he is now only 6-months behind his peers. As part of the Pennsylvania Health Law project he was assigned a TSS (Therapeutic Staff Support) worker part-time at the Daycare. Their job is to intervene and modify behavior when needed as a result of delayed communication abilities. Communication between the Daycare and the TSS workers was non-existent as per the State funded workers. They are supposed to work together to keep each party informed which means as parents we can work both ends to correct any issues. Complaints I’ve received from multiple TSS workers and IU20 staff is that when they are there, the Daycare teachers hand off the child to the State funded worker. That is not what they (TSS) are there for. The Daycare is still responsible to watch your child as much as any other child. The TSS and IU20 workers have a specific job and it’s not to take over the job of the Daycare. They’ve also reported that once handed off, other children would gather around the State funded workers and the Daycare staff would allow the offset of their duties of watching the other children. The Daycare is paid to manage its staff. The teachers are managed to watch your children. Somewhere there was a break of expected responsibilities. On one occasion our 2-year old saw me in the parking lot coming to pick him up. He escaped through a closing door, but was intercepted by me at the doorway. Another time a teacher complained to me that my other son ran from the Daycare playground area into the parking lot with traffic. Do we blame the kid or the teacher? This statement speaks for itself. More than once I’ve had one of my two sons come home saying (as well as a 2 and 3 year old can) water, water, water, and slamming the refrigerator dispenser for a drink. They’re kids, it happens. Their juice Sippy cups were full to the top untouched all day. I found it strange that a child would not drink their juice for 8-hours and then come home to run directly for a cup to get water. We started to look for another Daycare for the new school year while their grandmother was visiting from overseas and my wife could take some time off from work before we regretted not acting sooner.

DE

De Em

If I could give them zero stars, I would. The owner, Michael, has an absolutely disgusting mouth and verbally attacked me when I went in to inquire about a bill calmly. I do not trust this man to be around my toddler and run a daycare when hes flying off the handle, completely unprovoked, during a simple conversation. Completely speechless and appalled at how unprofessional and foul this man was to me. I will never bring my child back there and I would advise all parents to stay away from this place. This man is shady and does not run an honest business. They also hire some employees without running FBI background checks. Word of advice...Keep ALL of your receipts and record all of your conversations with them. And to the comment from the owner- is that something that you actually want to challenge? Because I recorded that entire conversation. He was, in fact, verbally attacking me. And "owing" money was news to me, and also not accurate. As he was not keeping an honest business. My child was not enrolled for the days he had charged me for. I had no attitude, whatsoever, but wasnt happy with the fact that he tried to use this $100 false "balance" as leverage to not give me a simple receipt for the hundreds of dollars I paid out of pocket for the 2015 year so that I could file my taxes.

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