Primrose School of Lafayette

Management is a bit poor right now and the teacher turnover is a little disturbing. When we started with Primrose a year ago, we loved it. The facility is great and the teacher we had, Ms. Maria, was wonderful. A few months later, however, kids were getting moved up and teachers were constantly leaving or getting replaced. The vibe started feeling less pleasant and when Ms. Sandy left the friendliness and cohesiveness of Primrose kinda left with her.

We absolutely love this school. If you are considering private kindergarten, Ms. Germaine is simply wonderful. We had several unpleasant experiences in the public elementary school so we switched to Primrose mid year and it has exceeded my expectations. On the first day they emailed me pictures of my son with his new friends and within a week my son was a noticeably different and happier person. The kids are nice, the class is small and the teacher is absolutely fabulous. The director and her entire staff are warm, friendly, kind and helpful; they always take as much time as you need to communicate and answer questions. I wish we would have found Primrose at the beginning of the school year but its never too late to make a positive change and Primrose Lafayette has been nothing but positive for us!

Our two-​year-​old son has been enrolled in Primrose Lafayette since July 2014 and we absolutely love it. He is happy at drop off each morning and content at pick up as well. The teachers are very communicative with us and the director, Miss Sandy, has always treated us and our son with extreme kindness. The meals are health-​conscious and the curriculum seems very appropriate for our son. His vocabulary has exploded since attending Primrose and his social skills — including sharing and playing well with others — improves everyday.
We have not experienced the turnover problems that others have mentioned. While the assistants have changed a couple of times, he has had the same primary teacher in the toddler classroom since he joined almost 8 months ago.
It seems from past reviews that there were some growing pains last year when management changed, but from everything I have seen they have ironed out a lot of kinks and run a very friendly, smooth, clean and progressive daycare. Before you rule out Primrose Lafayette based on old web reviews, ask trusted friends before making your daycare decision. I, personally, am very grateful to the Primrose Lafayette family for giving me the peace of mind that my child is being cared for so well while I’m at work each day.

We have been with the school from the time that it opened until this month. Our older son attended pre-​K here and our younger son was in the younger and older infants program. If I had been writing a year ago, I would have given Primrose five stars, like some of the other parents here. This school was excellent. My older son was not in a good place when we moved here from MD and started with the school. He had spent a year without seeing his mother, he had lost all of his friends and favorite places to go and things to do and had had some other bad experiences. He was withdrawn and miserable. He would not really associate with the other children and was not engaged with school. He was placed in Ms Naheed’s class. She gave the individual attention and focus he needed to turn it all around. He started making friends and loving school. He learned a lot. We were thrilled with his progress and we were thrilled with the school.
A little over a year ago, the center director was replaced. Since then the attitude seems to be that people are disposable. The staff seem to be treated badly and turnover has been tremendous. In the infant rooms that my younger son was in, it seemed that we were getting a new teacher every two months or so. It got to the point by the end that I could not even keep up with what the names of the teachers were. The center director wrote a letter to all the parent stating that turnover was due to the difficulty of finding good people who are interested in childcare. I do not find this argument compelling because for the most part she had excellent teachers with lots of good experience. She just created an environment where they did not want to stay. An example is Ms. Sylvia, who my wife and I privately called the baby whisperer. She could get our infant to understand and do things that no other teacher or even we as parents were able to do. She had 26 years of child care experience. She lasted a few months longer than some of the others, but she was quickly gone too.
While we were considering leaving the school, we had not made the decision to do so. We wanted to give the new director a chance to turn it around. However, the same courtesy was not extended to our one year son. Unfortunately, for the last two weeks, he has been going through a phase where he is confusing kissing and biting. Last week, he bit. This week a parent apparently complained about this. To put this into context for those of you who may be new parents, biting while unfortunate is a normal developmental behavior that most children go through. The behavior needs to be addressed, but it is something that can be expected, since 1 year olds are learning about their bodies and have very limited empathy. My son was bitten multiple times at Primrose by other babies and suffered more serious injuries as well, including a cut on his forehead from where another baby pushed him into a table. We did not complain about these incidents, because we know that babies don’t know any better and have to be taught appropriate behavior. My son’s teacher told me during the week of the incident that my son was actually the sweetest and gentlest baby in the class. At the time that my son bit, there was no discussion from the school that there would be any impact, other than watching him closer. However, when another parent complained, we were called at 4 pm on a Tuesday and told that our son would be «disenrolled» (their word) at the end of the week. I was not thrilled with this decision, since it left us scrambling for care. The next day at 2:30 I was called again and told to pick him up immediately since he had bitten again and another parent wanted him gone. This was unacceptable to me. We were already going to be leaving on Monday. I found it unbelievable that even if they truly believed he was a risk to another children (which frankly I did not believe they believed) they could not watch him closely for the remaining time, especially since they supposedly have a 1 to 4 ratio in the infant rooms. (As an aside, I am not sure that this ratio was being followed. My parents sometimes picked him up in the middle of the day and they told me that the ratio was often much higher because they did not seem to have floaters to allow teachers to take breaks and lunch.) My wife and I had to take off from work with virtually notice to take care of our son and find a new day care. We exhibited a great deal of patience with the school as it went through growing pains and a new director. However, the moment that our son was an inconvenience, we were tossed out.
If you are considering this school, consider two things: 1. That wonderful teacher that you really liked on the tour may be gone in no time. 2. You are one parent complaint away from being tossed out
with no notice.

JUST too much teacher turnover??? and moving around. Very clean. Very nice. Fairly well educated… but too much change w/​o, communication. too much change at all

The curriculum is good, but the staff turnover in our classroom was disturbing. The facilities are clean and well maintained. Found the kids playing video games to often. We changed to Take-​A-​Break, which we adore. Our teacher there has been with the school since 1998!