BeanTree Learning Day Care Center – Ashburn, Virginia

My son was in preschool program at BeanTree at Fairfax for three months. The school has very nice settings including beautiful decroated classrooms and safty system. Communications between teachers/parents and directors/parents are easy. However, children are brought from one room to another room for every 30 minutes during the day, some children may find difficult to follow this structure like my son. On the other hand, I think some teachers may not have eough experiences dealing with young kids though they have 4 years degree in early child educations. I also think the teacher lacks of knowledge how to deal with and help the kids who has special needs, like language delay. I also think the management level has very short patience to work on kids’ issues. My son got along with other kids very well at BeanTree, though he has language delay problem that sometimes cause frustrations between him and teacher. After serveral temper tantrums incidences, I had to remove my son out of BeanTree when BeanTree owner and director asked me to do so, even I told them that I’ll get language therpyist working on my son’s lanugage issues. I was very disappointed about their requst because they were not willing to make efforts on help a child who needs help after they charge almost double money than other childcare facilities. My son was pushed way when he was in need of help.
Anyway, if your child has special needs, I don’t think that is the right place.

•  OVERALL School Rating: 2
•  Health and Safety: 5
•  Environments: 5
•  Teaching Staff: 3
•  Teacher/Child Ratios: 3
•  Curriculum: 4

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this center is … has been the best decision for our family. We took a chance on the new school only 3 months after it opened its doors, we started our two sons there. They are now in the kindergarten program and we could not be any happier. They have grown from toddlers to such big boys and a lot of credit goes to Beantree. It has been such a loving, nurturing environment for them. From the moment they walk in until they leave you can see they enjoy their time at school. The issue of 30 minutes and the kids change activities was not one for us. Our boys got bored with anything for 30 minutes. So that worked well for them. I’m still amazed at the amount of knowledge they have at the age of 5. Plus the school is incredible and the teachers are equally so. It is really based on the child and ours have grown and blossomed thanks to beantree.

•  OVERALL School Rating: 5
•  Health and Safety: 5
•  Environments: 5
•  Teaching Staff: 5
•  Teacher/Child Ratios: 5
•  Curriculum: 5

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this center is …not worth the money!! i had my child at the chantilly center and was very dissapointed with the care. the staff was very unprofessional with me when i cited my complaints and they did not do anything to help. they took the approach of… it’ll work itself out. i was stunned with the way they treated me. the whole time my child was there she was unhappy and the management would not work with me to help her assimilate to daycare life. don’t go to the chantilly location. it’s pretty from the outside but cold on the inside.

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

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this center is …

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

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this center is …
a great place to be. Our staff and directors do the best they can to help children of all needs. However, if the directors feel it is better for a special needs child not to continue at Beantree, then its probably better for that child. I say this only because Ive been there almost 5 years. The directors care sincerely about the children—I know this because I work there–im a teacher myself. There isnt any center ive worked at where the directors care as much about the children.

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

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The upsides are its an exciting and fun environment for children, colorful rooms, music, dancing; computers, Spanish, and basically caring and nurturing teachers. The staff is friendly and the teachers are all certified. Everything is included, food, diapers, ect. , which is convenient. The early and late hours are appealing and the 30 minute transitions from class to class works well for many children.

The downsides are very high fees; uniforms are required at an extra cost, the teachers are young and possess very little real world teaching experience or training young children. Not enough attention is paid to children and life skills are not modeled to the students. They arent teaching self control, manners, and constructive behavior. They dont offer cutting edge programs, specially trained educators, or programs to teach children life skills, and for the price we thought they should offer more. The children seem to run the classrooms and the teachers, not the other way around. Children are given a little too much independence and can get into some precarious situations. Changing from room to room can be a downside, it depends on the child. Food resembles school cafeteria food and there are no alternatives unless your child has a food allergy. The teachers/directors are not open to input from parents, they really only want to hear praise, and shy away from the rest or become quickly offended. It sounds like some parents are treated differently than others and that is a shame since consistency is such a cornerstone in education and childcare. We say do your homework, ask many questions, and be willing to look beneath the surface. We had high expectations and when we voiced our repeated concerns, like some other parents have said here, we were dealt with pretty aggressively by the owner and in fact, we were accused of being the problem. Even though they try to be pleasant (smiling faces at all times) there is little beneath the surface of thier program and its worth doing your research. We eventually moved our child to another school because dealing with them became too difficult.

•  OVERALL School Rating: 1
•  Health and Safety: 1
•  Environments: 3
•  Teaching Staff: 1
•  Teacher/Child Ratios: 1
•  Curriculum: 1

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All children have needs and a pretty building with fun activities does not a school make. Bean Tree is working themselves right out of being a well rounded daycare and school. Its a shame that owners, directors or even teachers might think that children with special needs wouldn’t do well in their environment. The colorful rooms and over-the-top activities are designed to attract the attention of children and stimulate their minds and creative sides. This is exactly what all children need, especially those with special needs. It’s also a mistake for an educational facility or daycare to “decide” that children with special needs would be better served elsewhere. And by the way, all children have special needs, some just have more than others. The truth is that the owner of this business has forgotten that its a business and that parents are clients. When parents approach a school because they are concerned about chaos in the classrooms, teachers that cannot handle day to day activities for small children, too much sugar and carbohydrates in the food, and ultimately the safety of the children, they should be grateful for the notification. Instead many parents are met with a request to remove their child – and this has happened more than a few times – read the reviews. You can bet its not because a child has special needs…its because the facility doesn’t want to be exposed as being incompetent.

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

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Overated. The teachers are young and inexperienced, not able to handle young children, and have difficulty hearing feedback, getting requests from or constructive critism from parents. By the way, all children have special needs of some kind – again – immature teachers.

The owner is very unplesant to deal with and unable to admit flaws in the school and teachers. The tactic employed is to blame the children and the parents for the inadequacies.

Recommend looking further before buying this package. A pretty building with a colorful interior does not a good school make.

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

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