Center City KinderCare

We have been really happy here. We received a tour from the District Director, Terri, who was phenomenal. That being said, I’ve had negative experiences in the past, so I told Terri that while I loved what she had to say, none of it mattered if her team didn’t believe it, too. Let me tell you: her team knows their stuff. They are professional, nurturing and kind. Their director, Nicole, has been nothing short of fantastic. She is open to feedback, always follows up, sets boundaries without being rigid, and above all else, is competent and kind. Truly, truly, truly: we couldn’t be happier. My daughter is 15 months old and loves it and we love it, too. We’ve been there for approximately 5 months.

We decided to leave the day care, and I wrote following email to regional director. Hope this helps.
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Terry,
Hope this note finds you well.
You may not remember me, but we spoke briefly late last year, when you were visiting Kindercare in Center City Philadelphia. We had our daughter at that day care, but decided to leave few weeks ago, because of few reasons.
We have been having few questions on our finance — we believe we paid deposit, which we should get it back. I have called the office 4 times, and personally spoke with Nicole 3 times. All the times, she said that she will call me back, but never does. Anyway, money is not a big issue, however lack of accountability and professional behavior is an issue. This is one of the reason we decided to leave the day care.
Few other reasons —
— Often, we picked up our daughter with dirty diaper in the afternoon. Teachers were not aware that she was sleeping in soiled diaper
— Several times, we were told that she ate all the food that we provided from home, however, we will find unopened items in the freeze and in her bag. On the top our daughter will be immensely hungry — clear signs that she did not ate anything!
— The student to teacher ratio was hardly maintained — we found that most of the times her class would have only one teacher; mostly of the times among ~6,7 kids
— After Maria and Mary Kate left, and day care has been lacking management, and a professional atmosphere. The lack of communication from your office, on why both left, why 3 teachers were fired was also not professional. We keep our children with your company, so 100% transparency is essential and should always be maintained
— The most thing that bothered me personally that, there was no love. My daughter would keep crying and no teacher would hold her and try to calm her! She was afraid, scared at the day care. Teachers did not gave any damn about her, which made her daily chorus very painful
Hope this note helps you; if not, please accept my apologies for ignorance.
All the best.

I would NOT trust my child here. As of early February, we were scheduled to enroll my 1 year old beginning the first week of April. They said they’d call to confirm a few weeks before the start date. They didn’t call.
I called them and explained that we were supposed to start this week and they said «Oh, let me see if I can find your paperwork. I’ll call you by end of day». No call.
I called again that night. No return phone call. I stopped by the next day and the director (who is the one I spoke to on the phone on each occasion) acted as though she had no idea who I was. She asked me for our application, which they’d had for two months, and then told me to leave my email address with her (again) so that she could email me all the info. Then they’d register my son right away. You guessed it: No call and no email.
They were clearly understaffed when I stopped in and obviously have no organization, no consideration for a concerned parent to an infant, and no respect for anyone’s time. We had to scramble at the last minute to find another daycare. Fortunately, we found a great place with caring individuals who actually know what they’re doing.
I would never, ever recommend this daycare to anyone. If you’re trying to save money, they’re not even the cheapest! The place we found was less $ than KinderCare AND they have an amazing outside play area, whereas this dump has an «indoor playground». Not even a single window for any natural light.
I consider the horrible introduction I got to this place as a blessing in disguise. I’m so glad I found out what this place was like before my son actually started there.