Coral Reef Academy — Attraction in Melbourne

The first signs that something was wrong was when I was informed the daycare had given my son a bottle that was not his. I walked in one day to one worker playing with another baby girl with a pen and lightly tickling her face. The same pen next to the changing station that was used for daily poop reports. A mobile baby crawled up to a non-mobile baby and hit him across the face with a toy pretty hard. The baby cried the entire time I was there and I watched them move the baby who was hit to the other side of the room and placed him alone on the floor. They told the other baby “not nice”. My son came home before he even hit his two-month mark with a daily report that said he had eaten solids. I would take him home and check his diaper and it hadn’t been changed in so long that his poop was glued to his diaper and skin. When my son developed a rash we were asking that the daycare slowly ween him to another formula as we were doing at home. When I had asked him if he needed more formula after telling them to go back to using Enfamil, I was told that he was just being given what the daycare provided because he ran out. I was never informed of him running low or even out of formula. I found out the hard way baby powder was being used on him as it created a sludge in his neck after doing what the doctor told us to do for the redness that was occurring. I heard an employee from another room discussing in the front office how to write home a report that a child had climbed onto something and got hurt. The office warned the adult or teacher to change the wording to a ‘self-injury’. Not what I want to hear as a parent. The adults in the infant room would correct each other in front of me. “You know you can’t put a baby in the crib with a bib on!” It really had me thinking… what else are you incompetent about? #10: I got another form stating that my son had eaten solids. Having dismissed the last one as a made up form, I had found after hours of pain and a suppository, my son had his first solid poop before he was even three months old. #11: After surprising them when I had gotten out of work early, I had found my son screaming in a room where his soft cries were drowned out by many other babies. He had not eaten in 5 hours. He eats every 4 hours, and sometimes 8 ounces. I started becoming emotionally overwhelmed when I was told he never smiles. He only smiles and laughs at home and rarely cries unless hungry. The last problem still gets me worked up and I guess I should have listened to my instincts sooner and stopped seeing any of the concerns above as minor. They had recently implemented a no blanket rule so that no parent could say another baby was seen using another baby’s blanket. I walked into the facility and looked around at the full room and could not see my son. I stared at a baby in a walker near the door crying in the corner trying to figure out how to turn the walker… Snot running into his mouth... A worker noticed me looking at him and had told another worker to wipe off his mouth. I looked at another screaming baby who was doing tummy time with full chunks of boogers and snot on her face and she told the lady to wipe off her mouth too. I suddenly realized my son was completely underneath one of their standard daycare blankets in a fold out bassinet. You couldn’t see his entire body or face. When I realized it, I hurried to pull him out. He was sweaty from the heat of not getting air and from crying at the top of his lungs with his eyes shut. They informed me he was OK and just fighting sleep the entire day. He has not...

UPDATE:: STAY AWAY. OWNERS/MGMT ARE OFFERING TO ENTER PARENTS INTO A RAFFLE TO WIN 2 WEEKS TUITION FOR 5 STAR REVIEWS. THEY ARE TRYING TO BURY THE RECENT NEGATIVE REVIEWS. I JUST LEARNED OVERNIGHT4/30/22 THAT MY SON WAS PHYSICALLY ABUSED AND THE TEACHER WAS LET GO AND MGMT NOR STAFF FELT THE NEED TO NOTIFY ME. Let me begin this review with first saying, I did not think I would ever be leaving such a negative review or terrible experience as this that my family and I have experienced at this facility. This daycare prides themselves and advertises that they appreciate the diversity that each child brings and how each child is unique in their individual needs. And while that may be true for a child of normal circumstance and needs, it was not true of my recently diagnosed speech delayed child. My son started at this facility in July of 2020 in the infant room and has been there until today. We’ve been with them through the height of covid and the uncertainty that a pandemic brings to everyone. Closures, positive cases, regular colds and germs associated with daycare. In the 1 year room my son was bit countless times by multiple children which is normal for that age, I know. But while my son was coming home day after day covered in bites, bruises, and cuts, I showed patience and understanding with them because it happens. I never imagined that when my son was diagnosed at the end of December with a speech delay, that they wouldn’t show the same patience and understanding. As responsible parents, my husband and I immediately got our child into speech therapy even with the therapist coming into the school to do therapy. I made sure the directors and teachers were well aware of his diagnosis, evaluations and progress. None of this was done because of prompting by any of the daycare workers, by the way. At the end of February I was approached to hold a conference about my sons progress and expectations in this facility. We met, talked about progress and concerns and we jointly agreed that it would be beneficial to my son to be in a facility with a smaller class size and that they would work with us on time because they understood you can’t just walk into a good daycare the next day. No time limit was given. 48 hours later I had a resolution in progress. We were on multiple lists for reputable daycares in the area that offered smaller class sizes. I informed the program director that we were on multiple lists but that we were looking at a new school enrollment towards June. 3 months away. To this information, I was given a displeased facial expression with a “I’ll talk to so and so and let you know” I didn’t hear anything else for about two weeks until I was approached and asked for another conference. I scheduled the conference for the following Wednesday. The Monday before our upcoming conference, I was given a termination of services letter with the director stating that with my sons speech delay, he was just too hard to handle. Maybe if they had been more commutative, or forthcoming with their expectations or internal timeline they wanted him discharged, we would’ve had a more amicable split. My son walked out of the only daycare he’s ever known today with not so much as a goodbye or a hug from any of his teachers. Change is hard for anyone. Change is especially hard for a child that doesn’t understand why. My heart breaks for him. I’m hoping this review will prevent this discrimination from happening to someone else’s child and it should not have...

EDITED TO ADD: PARENTS COMING TO LEAVE A GOOGLE REVIEW FOR THE “raffle” ask yourself why now. Have they ever done this before? Or is this a new creative way to move down a review that they feel doesn’t reflect them in a positive light? They gave us a half week credit for what was done to my daughter. They’re willing to give you a 2week credit to help cover it up. It could be your child too. I only posted to warn other parents because I don’t want those sweet babies getting treated the way my girl was.

I want to ensure I share my experience with Coral Reef Academy on Stack Rd with other parents.

On Wednesday, April 13, 2022 I witnessed my daughter get her face shoved by the back of her teacher’s hand at Coral Reef Academy on Stack Rd. The teacher’s name is Jessica and she’s one of the ones I’ve seen float between rooms. My daughter is 3 years old. Teacher initially denied what I saw but admitted it and the incident was reviewed on camera and verified by admin.

My daughter was sitting upright in her seat and had reached for something on the table that she wasn’t supposed to for the first time when this occurred.

The director was immediately notified. They never questioned me and only asked if I was going to take my 1 year old son home with me too. I was very angry and upset and was treated with respect to the best of their ability. I believed they conducted themselves professionally at that moment.

Later they admitted that what I saw happen, is what happened. It was witnessed by them on footage and teacher admitted. Step 1 was my children were never going back there. We asked for a refund for the week, they gave us a partial credit to include the date of the incident which we appreciated because we had to find alternative care. They wrote up an incident report for us and stated that “while redirecting child, teacher moved child’s head to the side lightly with her hand.” Coral reef’s new motto should be “if it’s light, it’s alright. 👍🏽” because this teacher wasn’t fired. She was given extra training. If the 45 hr training they do annually didn’t keep her from putting her hands on my daughter, idk how this training is supposed to.

I contacted DCFS who said it doesn’t meet the criteria for further investigation. I contacted the police who said they couldn’t charge the teacher for putting her hands on my child.

I’d also like to add that upon origionally registering her, they told me AFTER I had already withdrawn her from her previous daycare that we needed to have her potty trained. We got her potty trained in a week. Which we were proud of her for. Within two weeks of enrollment, we were warned that she may be sent home for disrupting nap time. Almost immediately the next day or two they began calling us to pick her up due to this. The following week we were told they’d work with us until she found a new daycare. A few days later we were served with termination papers due to this issue. 👍🏽 My children were not at this daycare for longer than a month.

I’d like to say much, much more but I’ll just leave you all with the facts and leave out the many emotions that have come as a result of this incident.

Edited to add: in their response below they said that the teacher has been there a year. A whole year. That’s how long it took her to get caught putting her hands on a child inappropriately. I verbatim stated their depiction of the incident. And they said they don’t feel it’s accurate. I encourage parents to stick with your gut on this one....