Wow! I am going to have to disagree with many of the comments above. My 2 children have been a A Child's Place for over 5 years. I couldn't imagine sending them anywhere else.

It is true, when the owner stepped down, the new director was not the same. She tried hard, but she often fell short in the comuunication department. I always new my kids were safe and loved though.

I guess the owner was able to sense the issues as she rectified the problem. That director is no longer there...and the new one, whom has been there since BEFORE my kiddos started is very good. The owner is pretty actiive again as well. (I know she and her family suffered a tragic loss and was "out of the picture" for about a year or so)

My 2 girls absolutley love coming to school. I feel secure knowing I am leaving them in a place that is warm, friendly and more like my home than nay other daycare or preschool I have ever visited!

I used to recommend A Child's Place with confidence, many years ago when my 1st child enrolled, but things have really gone downhill. The owner/director stepped down and turned the whole center's control to a group of unqualified girls. Yes, they are nice and they mean well, but they are simply do not have the skills and experience needed. There used to be a real teacher on staff with a real school curriculum for the preschoolers, so they were so ready for kindergarten, but I guess for cost-cutting, they have eliminated that. The girls there now "follow" the lesson plans left behind by a former teacher. And the turnover rate for workers is amazing-- every other week, there is a new hire, and within a couple months, she quits.

But I have more serious concerns now. Every day when my spouse or I pick up our kids, the kids are dangerously out of control-- hitting, throwing rocks or toys, screaming-- and someone always gets hurt, but no one seems to notice. I have, on many occasions, picked up and comforted a crying child and took them over to one of the workers & had to ask them to please clean the cuts or scrapes, but they just do the "oh, you'll be ok" thing, maybe giving the crying child a wet washrag. And there is no consequence or discipline for the child who caused the problem. One day my older child was told, "go take care of your [sibling], he/she is crying again." I almost cried, myself, when I heard this.

In addition, there are special needs children there, who get no special care or intervention, and the girls there have no qualifications or knowledge of what to do. I do not want to publicly print what my spouse and I witnessed on 2 separate occasions of how the girls handled some of the inevitible outbursts these special needs kids had-- I just know if my own child had been treated that way, I'd have yanked my kids out that minute. When one of my kids was still in the baby room, he/she was practically a chew-toy, came home with injury reports and bite marks weekly. But I could get no one there to address how they were going to keep my baby safe. There is a specific biting policy in the policy book they hand out every year, but no matter how many times we brought this up, they refused to enforce it.

My spouse and I have started looking for a new daycare, unfortunately, in this area there are very few alternatives. And it seems that just when we get fed up, things seem to calm down, so we give it another chance. I think the only way things will change is if they return to the quality they used to show 3 or 4 years ago-- the owner needs to take over again, they need to hire real teachers again, they need to show a little pride in their business.

I am kind of surprised to read some of the positive reviews on other websites- they are obviously from newer enrollees who don't know how things used to be, or maybe they have toured some of the other centers in the area and A Child's Place probably looks good in comparison. If a good business person really wants a sure thing, it would be a great idea to open up a really good daycare in this zipcode.