The Teaching Tree, Southwest

Run in the other direction! I wish someone would have warned me about the chaos that ensues at this school. We never would have sent our children here if we knew! My infant daughter experienced complete negligence in her first (and only) 2 weeks at this center. They never followed her bottle feeding schedules and gave her cake on her first day - without asking.. she’s 9 months old! We got tired of her coming home inconsolable and starving just to get runaround responses from the director about what time she actually ate and how much. Complete lack of attention. My 3 year old also had a horrible experience. Would come home with completely raw diaper rashes and terrified to potty train. Now that he’s able to talk clearly, he confirmed that kids who wear diapers in the pre school class get yelled at and then pulled my the shirt collar to the corner in time out for a long time if they make a dirty diaper… this is emotional, verbal and physical abuse (allegedly)!

My son has been at this center since he was 2 years old and he is now 7 and I absolutely love this center. My son leaves happy every single day because of how well he is treated by both other students and staff. The director is extremely easy to talk to. My son comes home every single day with something new that he has learned. I definitely recommend this center if you want a place where your child is loved and taken care of. This center is more than just a daycare because the teachers actually take the time to build a relationship with the children.

My daughter enjoys going very much. We have been attending for nearly a year. She seems to be learning something new everyday. Staff is kind and always stays in communication with myself and dad.

This is not a place to send your infant. I noticed there were more bouncers/swings/walkers than babies. I nursed my daughter every day during my lunch break and I never saw her doing tummy time. It makes one question are they really doing as much tummy time that I am paying for? I was also concerned when I found her asleep on the bouncer one day. There is a lack of communication between management and staff members. On the first day, the teacher said that they did not know she was starting until 10pm the night before. That was the first red flag for me. I filled out the Indiana state form with her feeding schedule that she be fed every 3 hours which was not followed that first day as they fed her more than I asked. There is a lack of building partnership with new parents. Instead of coming alongside with parents to create partnership regarding goals of care for your individual baby, they like to dispense quick opinions/thoughts how to raise your child. For example, my daughter was going through a growth spurt and could have very well been wanting to cluster feed. Instead of calling me and asking if it is okay to use my frozen breast milk (as I had kindly written in front of the Ziploc bag and communicated beforehand in the Indiana state form for her feeding), they went ahead and made the decision to feed her anyway. They called me after they had already used my frozen breast milk. Then the following day, the same thing happened. They fed my 4-month-old daughter 8 ounces of breastmilk in less than a 2-hour time span without notifying me. I came there during my lunch break as usual to nurse her and noticed she was not hungry come to find she had no more bottles left for the afternoon. Per the teachers, they were following directions from the director to go ahead and feed her the second bottle because she had been crying for 2 hours when it sounded like she was simply overtired. I heard a different story from the director. Am I not paying for the skills to soothe her outside of feeding? Is feeding always the easiest resort? I expressed my concerns about my daughter being overfed via email and asked to meet in person to discuss further. I was told that there was no time for me to meet up that day and that they would look at their calendar. I gave her a week to look at her calendar and even sent another email to follow up. I never ended up getting an in-person meeting regarding my concerns. While I was told that there was no time for me to express my concerns, I was getting quick email responses that evening, being instructed as what’s normal for my child. Maybe she meant it with good intention but I didn’t feel I was being heard as a mother who knows her own child. Instead, the message that kept coming across is “I’m a mother of 4 and have breastfed all my children.” along with her listing her credentials. As a first-time mom and breastfeeding, I did not appreciate the unwarranted advice about how I should expect my child to be growing/feeding nor the advice of increasing my milk supply. There was a lack of communication regarding billing and fees. As first-time parents, we would have appreciated a more thorough explanation about when to expect payment to be withdrawn, whether we could pay manually versus automatically withdrawn, and what are the actual fees/discounts applied. The paper given shows fees that are discounted for those who only use the daycare at certain time frames. That was not explained to us and we would not have known to ask because of how unclear the form was. This was another instance where we reached out, asking for an in-person meeting for the breakdown of fees. Again, we were told that there was no time to meet with us. Last but not least, the director is not readily available except via email. The director was either teaching a class or doing other work. There is no second person who is able to address administrative concerns or even parental concerns when she is unavailable. Communication is heavily reliant through their app or through email.

I have CCDF vouchers which pays for daycare minus my co pay. I had experienced a miscarriage and pulled my youngest. I was emailed once and called several times letting me know that I had swipes to complete however I was not told a specific deadline. I also was told my billing information had been removed. I finally approved the late attendance when I got too it not knowing there was a date and time to complete it by. After this was completed they cleaned out my bank account 700+. This isn’t the first time they have taken large sums of money without clear communication as to what was being taken when and why. Keep that in mind when choosing this provider.