Any experience with them? I know they have locations all throughout the U.S. and they seem to have a pretty good education plan set out for specific ages groups. Has anyone ever personally used them or know someone who has?

By Reds9298 on Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - 03:06 pm:

Absolutely fantastic! If I were going to put Natalie in daycare (and we might) I wouldn't put her anywhere but there. VERY expensive and worth every penny. I've done lots of observations there during college (quite a while back!) but have friends with their children there now. They all LOVE it. It's the best of the best IMO. Like I said, very expensive. Full time here (Kokomo, IN) is around $800+/mth. Yikes!!

By Pamt on Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - 04:42 pm:

It varies from place to place like anything else. Some are good and some are bad. I am a graduate of Kindercare myself. However, I also worked at one when I was a senior in highschool. I had eleven 3 y/o's right by myself. It was horrible!! I have one kid who was probably autistic (looking back now) and he had major behavior problems and would go ballistic if he didn't get to play with blocks every day and I got no support from the director in handling the situation with his mom. And keep in mind that I was only an 18 y/o with a HS education and the director didn't want to intervene with the mom and this kid's behavior. It was honestly the worst job I ever had! The curriculum may be "great", but I don't think 2-3 y/os should have a curriculum first of all and also, regardless of how wonderful the curriculum is it all depends on the teachers. None of the teachers at the Kindercare I worked at had more than a highschool diploma and no formal early childhood education. If you're just considering it for daycare purposes, then I would look more at discipline, socialization, and schedule than education/curriculum.

By Boxzgrl on Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - 06:23 pm:

The one i'm looking at is $187/wk. I don't find that bad at all since I get $150/wk with the boy i'm watching now and there is a great difference between a persons home and a daycare setting. I'm probably going back to work in August from 8am-1pm, Mon-Fri. I think at this point DD will actually love it. She enjoys not always being stuck around Mom, lol. Once daycare is paid for i'll only be bringing in about $800/mo but what the heck! Thats what raises are for, right? I'm definitely going to check out the daycare myself. They have one teacher for every 8 children.

By Mommmie on Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - 07:40 pm:

I looked at one when my son was in half day kinder and it was one of the few places that serviced this elementary school. I remember it had an open room policy, meaning the place was very open and there weren't totally separate classrooms with doors, with the exception of the babies and toddlers and they had a half door. You could stand in the middle of the place and see every group. It was quite loud.

Their half day kinders had a kinder curriculum in addition to the public school's so the kids were getting a full day of kinder which is what you need here bec of the testing. (The public school has since gone to full day kindergarten.)

I remember it was fairly pricey and the ratios were the max allowed by the state, which isn't good. There seemed to be a lot of teacher turnover.

I think with these big chain daycares you just have to look at the individual school and decide. I think in better parts of town, the daycares are better. You might be able to save money if you can find a daycare that will take your child part time since you are only working part-time.

By Reds9298 on Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - 09:45 pm:

Sounds like the facility here in Kokomo is really on top of things. Low ratio, a waiting list to maintain that ratio, and the same teachers all the time (not a big turnover).

I will be going back to teaching half-time in the fall (afternoons) and we've considered Kindercare (over grandparents) just for the socialization. Then I thought 'I can't believe I would pay someone $145/wk. to watch my kid sleep for 2 hours in the afternoon!' Grandparents can do it for free, so we probably won't go that route. If I was though, I would be there first.

By Tink on Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - 09:51 pm:

Rob and I looked at the KinderCare here and I was NOT impressed. I didn't think it was very clean and many of the teachers seemed to just be working for their paycheck. They weren't interacting with the kids. It was obvious that they didn't enjoy children. Most of their interaction was just reacting to what the kids were doing, breaking up arguments, telling kids they'd done a good job on a coloring project. For the money we'd be spending, we would rather be taking her to different classes or putting her in a preschool/daycare that was interested in teaching Bella and exposing her to fun new ideas. I also wondered, if the center was dingy, were they going to be making sure that my child was clean and that the toys she played with were sanitized.

That said, I agree that each center is different and kept up differently. I wouldn't give KinderCare another chance at another location, though, based on what I saw when we visited.

By Lauram on Sunday, April 10, 2005 - 09:09 pm:

I'm removing my son from Kindercare at the end of the month. Basically, my three reasons are the lack of problem-solving ability of the director, the turn over (and young ages) of the staff, and the "curriculum" which fails to include a solid social/emotional component. We're switching to a local daycare where the staff has very low turnover (Many have been there 25+ years), big emphasis on social/emotional, great relationships formed with families, and fabulous social/emotional emphasis. Also, we pay $218 a week for a three year old. Up until January, we were paying $293 a week.

By Ginny~moderator on Monday, April 11, 2005 - 07:40 pm:

Sounds like a really good move to me, Laura. It sounds like there are big differences in Kindercare facilities. I guess it's a franchise, and I wonder how much control the Kindercare company can exercise. Obviously, they don't always exercise sufficient control.