Tiny Findings Child Development Center

Fantastic Teachers. The teachers for my child over the past two years (from 9months to 3 years) have been fantastic and very compassionate towards the children in their class. In my opinion as a run-​of-​the-​mill dad (despite my coffee cup claiming world’s best dad) emotional intelligence and compassion are the main skills I am looking for in infant/​toddler care. The teachers I have interacted with thus far have that in large abundance. I don’t know how they fare in terms of degrees and certifications, my kids are young enough still that I haven’t made that a priority yet. I can’t speak to the top leadership as the Director position at this center has had frequent turnover in my two year stint at this place (second director in two years). I am sure top dog at a day care is a thankless job where you are bound to make people unhappy, one you could not pay me enough to do. But the teachers remain the steady constant in my opinion and are the positive for me for this place.
Course curriculum is impressive as well. A lot of thought and planning goes into it.
No day care is perfect I am sure (I only have experience with this one). A few knocks on this place is the lack of transparency on certain processes like class placement. The lack of knowing how these placement decisions are made coupled with the fact that you feel you are missing out if you don’t know the secret handshake can be maddening. It may be like this at all day cares I have not investigated if others include the teacher, the parent, and the powers that be when making the class rosters each transition year.
There also seems to be rigidity with honoring special requests and forcing new requests upon us. We had one child in the day care for two years and our second child was slated to start in September. We wanted to push our start date just one month to October so our child could get over reflux and our request was rejected. So we are being charged for a month of Child Care for our second that we will not be using even though we are long-​time customers. From talking with friends this seems pretty common across all day cares. Also they enforced a new policy of closing down early every other Friday at 4pm. So for those like me that work across town I have to leave my job at 3pm every other Friday.
Also it is a pain for people who don’t work in the building to park. They only have four spots in the underground parking for morning drop-​off. So when the spots are full you end up having to try to find street parking in downtown DC.
At the end of the day though, especially in the business of child care, I imagine there is no perfect solution. I can at least say I feel my child is safe and cared for by the teachers. Pricing is competitive as well.