Preschool of America: Times Square, NYC

We enrolled our six month son with the Times Square center of Preschool of America. The facility boasts of a safe, secure environment and a lot of warm adult interaction. We unfortunately found nothing of the sort and we pulled our son from the program within just one month’s time.

My son has eczema and he needs to wear footed onesies so that he wouldn’t scratch his legs. He also needs to wear mitts to prevent him from doing damage on his skin when he scratches. Every time we would pick him up at the end of the day we would find his outfit completely dirty. I’ve got two issues with this. First, I am not sure how clean the facility is if he can get so dirty since the facility is indoors. Second, you would think the staff would know enough to change his clothes when he gets so dirty since he tends to put his mitts and parts of his clothes in his mouth because of teething.

The facility also boasts of an open door policy, however, but I suppose that open door policy is only available to times that are most convenient from them as they kicked my wife when she wanted to stay and watch the kids for a while.

I once dropped off my son one day and found a HUGE cockroach crawling across the floor where the infants played. I was shocked to see the cockroach in an infant facility. I was more shocked to see the staff run away from it and allow the cockroach get close to the nearby infants. I had to lead the cockroach to a corner until someone could help me deal with it. What is worse is that I found kids doing tummy time and crawling in the exact area where I first found the cockroach later in the day. I only hope they sterilized that area properly after the cockroach incident.

We visited him several times and found him with a dirty diaper. Who knows how long he was sitting there with that dirty diaper and who knows how long it would have been until the staff noticed enough to change him. All I know is that we had to alert the staff each time that he needed a diaper change even though it was pretty apparent to us by the smell.

The staff seemed to be disinterested in the job and did not make any type of connection with my son. For example, the head teacher would often walk in late every day and had no problems leaving on time. The head teacher also had trouble disengaging herself from her blackberry as we would often found her with a kid in one hand and her blackberry on the other. Whenever we would call in to check in on our son, we would often receive these one word answers from her and never received any meaningful feedback. Furthermore, we had doubts about her filling out her daily sheets accurately as she would misrepresent the time of his naps and the amount of food he ate throughout the day. Sometimes, she did not even fill out the daily sheets completely.

My son was learning how to eat solid food. Although at times he may be slow at eating, my son generally loves it and finishes his little container of solid food at home. We tried packing him a similar container of solid food to have during day care but he never really ate as much of it as he did at home. I am not sure if the staff got inpatient with him and could not wait for him finish it all. My suspicion though is that the staff did not prepare the solid food properly since we would always mix in a little bit of milk to dilute the solid food. We always gave the staff clear written instructions on how to do this but I am not sure if they took the time to read the instructions or if they simply could not understand it because they would send his unfinished food back home and it never looked like they were prepared properly. The unfinished food always appeared to be too watery or too powdery.

In addition to not following instructions, my son has eczema as I said, and we have instructed the staff to apply Aquaphor liberally on his body to manage his itch. We normally go through a large jar of Aquaphor every two weeks. We provided a similar jar to the staff but for some reason, they still have not finished up using this jar even though it has been close to a month’s worth of time. We also instructed them to give my son plenty of tummy time to develop his neck and back strength. I am not sure if they disregarded these instructions as well because my son is no further along from crawling when he first started the day care.

The last straw was when we called in to check on our son and the head teacher told us that she had found blood his crib sheets and that she had no idea where it was coming from. You all can imagine how we must have felt to get such alarming news. But I am not sure what was more alarming…the part about my son was bleeding or the part how the staff did not know where the blood was coming from. How can they not know where the blood was coming from? I know that she is not a doctor but couldn’t she just pick up the kid and do a quick check to give us a little more information? The 30 minutes it took for us to get to the day care center and find out what was wrong was the longest 30 minutes of our lives. We finally arrived at the day care and found out that the blood was coming from a scratch on his head…and thankfully our son was ok. But the head teacher could have saved us a lot of anquish if they had just done a more thorough check and showed a little more interest in their job.

We confronted the director about all these issues and she said that she spoke with the head teacher and address the cleanliness issues. She had also had some constructive suggestions like moving the changing table out to the main room so it was easier for the head teacher to change. The next day I went back to the day care center and found the changing room still in the same place. I also found the head teacher texting away on her blackberry. After that, I decided to pull my son from this day care center officially and even though we had pre-paid for the rest of the month.

We have had no positive experiences from this day care facility. This was a complete and utter disaster and we would not recommend the Times Square center of Preschool of America to anybody.

•  OVERALL School Rating: 1
•  Health and Safety: 1
•  Environments: 1
•  Teaching Staff: 1
•  Teacher/Child Ratios: 1
•  Curriculum: 1

this center is …
THE REAL PRESCHOOL OF AMERICA MISSION STATMENT!

We pledge today to not give a sh*t,
To permit your child to kick, punch, be disrespectful, scratch, & spit,
Cause at Preschool of America,
This is the place,
Where your child can grow up in inhumane disgrace.
Teaching humane ethical morals fly out the door,
As we believe in allowing our students to knock each other roughly to the floor,
At Preschool of America,
This is what we believe,
And if you don’t agree with our philosophy,
SHUT THE HELL UP AND LEAVE!!!

DON’T BOTHER! HIGH TEACHER TURNOVER. TEACHER’S ARE OVERWHELMED WITH THE AMOUNT OF CHILDREN PLACED IN THEIR ROOM. SOMETIMES THERE IS ONLY ONE TEACHER TO AN OVERLOADED RATIO OF CHILDREN, DUE TO THE FACT THAT TEACHERS CONSTANTLY CALL OUT SICK DO TO BEING OVERWORKED OR OVERWHELMED. AND DON’T BELIEVE WHAT THE DIRECTOR TELLS YOU ABOUT THE PRE-K RATIO BEING 1:12. THE NYC BOARD OF HEALTH CLAIM THAT IF THERE ARE MORE 3 YEAR OLDS THAN 4 YEAR OLDS IN THE PRE-K ROOM (WHICH IS USUALLY THE CASE, THE YOUNGEST CHILDREN USUALLY BEING 2.9 IN “THE BLUE ROOM” PRE-K/KINDERGARTEN CLASS SO THE ADMIN CAN FILL UP ENROLLMENT IN ALL CLASSROOMS) THE RATIO SHOULD BE 1:10! ALSO, CHILDREN WHO ARE 2.9 CANNOT KEEP UP WITH A CURRICULM MEANT FOR THE PRE-K AND STUDENT’S WHO ARE WORKING TOWARDS KINDERGARTEN. THEIR CURRICULUM IS IN JEOPARDY AT THE EXPENSE OF RAISING ENROLLMENT.

THE PARENT MANUAL ALSO STATES THAT PROBLEMATIC STUDENTS ARE GIVEN A MONTH TO “CURB” THEIR BEHAVIOR AND IF NOT ARE ASKED TO LEAVE, HOWEVER I HAVE SEEN THAT THESE CHILDREN REMAIN EXHIBITING THEIR UNRULY BEHAVIORS AT THE EXPENSE OF STUDENTS WHO ARE WILLING TO COOPERATE AND LEARN.

THE SCHOOL CARES MORE ABOUT “INSIDE” APPEARANCES THAN IT DOES THE SAFETY AND SECURITY OF THE CHILDREN! TEACHERS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR KEEPING THE ROOMS SPOTLESS, WHICH MEANS MOPPING THE FLOORS WITH THE CHILDREN STILL IN THE ROOM. THESE WOODEN FLOORS BECOME EXTREMELY SLIPPERY AND ARE A HAZZARD TO INDIVIDUALS WHO WALK UPON THEM WHEN WET. ALSO, THE BACKYARD PLAYGROUND IS BENEATH AN APARTMENT BUILDING WHERE THE TENTANTS ARE KNOWN TO TOSS THEIR GARBAGE UPON THE CHILDREN THEMSELVES: CIGARETTE BUTTS, ASHTRAYS, EGGS, DIRTY DIAPERS, AND CONDOMS HAVE BEEN PELTED AT THE CHILDREN! OF COURSE, THE SCHOOL ADMIN DOESN’T CARE ABOUT THIS PROBLEM, THEY JUST WANT CLIENT’S MONEY! ALSO, THERE IS AN OVERWHELMING “GAS” SMELL IN THE BACKYARD.

THE SCHOOL IS ALSO NEXT DOOR TO A HOMELESS SHELTER, AND PLENTY OF “SEEDY/QUESTIONABLE” INDIVIDUALS HAVE BEEN OBSERVED OUTSIDE THE POA DOOR. ON OCCASSION THESE INDIVIDUALS SNUCK INSIDE AFTER A PARENT HAS HAS BEEN BUZZED IN AND USED THE ELEVATOR, AND SO THE “NEEDY” TRIED TO STEAL PURSES FROM THE STROLLER ROOM.

•  OVERALL School Rating: 1
•  Health and Safety: 1
•  Environments: 1
•  Teaching Staff: 1
•  Teacher/Child Ratios: 1
•  Curriculum: 1

this center is …THERE ARE ALSO NUMEROUS COCKROACHES AND MICE IN THE SCHOOL DUE TO THE FACT THEY ARE ON THE SECOND FLOOR ABOVE THE 7-11.

•  OVERALL School Rating: 1
•  Health and Safety: 1
•  Environments: 1
•  Teaching Staff: 1
•  Teacher/Child Ratios: 1
•  Curriculum: 1