Tgarcia
Sacramento,#2UPDATE EX-employee responds
Tue, May 19, 2009
I worked at Kindercare in Northren California and most Kindercares are the same and are ran in the same way. Before you put your child into any Daycare or Learing Center you should get public records on the facility and read all the complaints, so you can weed out the good places from the bad. You should also make sure that all the teacher and any workers that interact around or with the children have been finger printed and/or have some type of college ECE units or degrees in Child Development or Early Childhood Education. I have been working in Early Childhood (ECE) for over 20 years and not all facilities are for profit there are some good places that are child centered. I personally would not ever put my child into a Kindercare Learing Center because they are always under staffed, they are always out of ratio, sometimes they have no centers or activites for the children to keep the occupied and some of the facilites are filthy. How to spot a good childcare center.....well it's not very hard IF you know what to look for. * All the teachers and staff have Early Childhood Education units (ECE) from a college or University. * There are developmentlly appropreate (DAP) learning centers set up in each classroom so the children can explore learning in Math, Art, Music, Dramatic play, Science, Reading, Writing, Manipulatives. *There are (DAP) learing centers set up outside as well in the play yard so the learing can continue outside as well. * Teachers actually interact with the children and take note on the development of the children in there care ie: portfolios on all children in their classrooms....a portfolio is a vivid documantation on what the children are actually learing in the classroom beyond the mile stones of all the relms of development. * Flexability on classroom scheduals to meet the needs of the children. * The classroom curriculum is mostly made up of the needs of the children depending on the age of the child ie: toothbrushing, handwashing, toileting, cleaning up their own messes, feeding theirselves, serving themselves their own meals and snacks. If you have a good center this is not hard to do at all and remember that YOUR paying for your childs education, so you can be picky, but remember that most childcare workers DO NOT have the propper training to work with children; therefore' it is not there fault that there is not a good program at the center that your child is at it is the responcilibity of the Director to impliment a well rounded program and for the education and training of each of their staff members in that facility. So be careful who your pointing fingers at and put yourself in that Teachers position. If the facility if understaffed all the time and out of ration all the time then how is it a teachers fault? It's not it's the administrations fault becaue they are too cheap to hire other Teachers to save their company money in the long run which does NOT benifit YOUR child in the end.