Children's Learning Adventure — Local services in Keller

It seems to be all about money at the CLA Keller!

The first time we went into the building we were overwhelmed... We loved this school and their program!

We have been looking for a great daycare, 3 times a week/ full day. It was important for us to find a daycare with HEALTHY food, hygienic behavior like hand washing before meals, cleaning running noses etc. We loved that our child would be encouraged in its whole development as an individual.

The first couple of weeks were amazing, everybody was friendly, courteous and very helpful. Teachers should be well experienced and certified. In the first weeks we spoke in high terms about our teacher.

After a couple of weeks upon closer examination and watching:

1.They noticed our information to avoid specific foods after weeks only when we communicated this to our teacher again. Although they had it in written form.

2.CLA was providing food from a third party-rich in variety, USDA certified, but non-organic and in our opinion not really healthy. Asking for a list with ingredients like flavor enhancers, high fructose syrups etc.- the director couldn't or didn´t want to provide it! Not sure!

So we tried some meals... A lot was unnaturally SWEET-and incredible SPICY. Allegedly all food was USDA certified- After addressing our problem with their food offer we got the following excuse: They didn't noticed yet! Their sense of taste is already insensitive, caused by all the fast food in their lifes, speaking for the most Americans- and the kids love it! Really??? We could have bring food from home, but the price of 200$ a week for three full days was out of question.

3.Our very young and inexperienced teacher bonded very extremely with our child. She carried our little one most of the time- In the beginning we were happy about that she took care so well to get our toddler adopted to the new situation. But kids love closeness and she said that there is something special between her and our kid- this was a bit spooky! We haven´t been looking for a second MOM! We wanted for our little smurf to be independent, losing a bit the shyness some children have...

Instead, the progress got lost and our kid first didn't want to stay there, than didn´t want to come home or even greeting us, was completely changed, was unsettled and was beating her stuffed animals, wanted to be carried all the time and had many restless nights... really strange! Our toddler is normally a very lovely and open hearted little soul-never knowing or showing aggressions! We were very worried!

4.Our teacher turned out to be very often inattentive and definitely over challenged. We watched the kids biting and beating each other, pushing and making chaos. Our kid was scared. The teacher did´t even notice.

We watched the kids starting meals without getting hands washed! Their noses were running in all colors during playing, during meals etc. The kids distributed the snot everywhere! For 200$/ week we needed to tell her to clean up their noses to avoid spreading germs.

Mostly not using bibs or sunscreen. Tables have been disinfected WHILE some kids still were eating! Unbelievable! During nap time the phone was ringing in class-waking up the kids, the "lullaby" was sometimes so loud, that we were wondering how the kids could find a peaceful sleep! When our teacher went out for break mostly nobody could tell us WHO was watching the kids during nap and how long they slept!

After confronting our teacher and entreating her trying to find the best solution for our kid-she reduced following communications to a minimum.

After quitting our contract nobody got back to us! Never! The friendliness stopped immediately.

We as parents AND our schools should be inspiring examples - working together to make our precious little ones ready for the world, being healthy, smart and great individuals!

A few months ago we found the perfect school for our little one and are very very sad and disappointed that our child needed to go through this chaos!

That was our sad experience here-hoping you can make...

My husband and I LOVED this facility. From the beginning, we were so impressed with the entire setup and the teachers. The infant teachers are truly amazing and were wonderful with my now 1 year old daughter. My 2 year old son had some issues with biting from the get go at this facility. It was extremely important to my husband and I to have a good relationship with the director and administrative staff, as well as our children’s teachers – so that we could always be on the same page – and work with our kids at home the way the staff worked with them at school; particularly with my son, to knock him of this bad habit. My husband made it clear from the get-go that if there was ever any danger of negative consequences from our son's issue on the horizon, we wanted to be continuously in the loop and do whatever we could to help with the situation, as best as we could from home. She assured us that we would never be surprised with any negative feedback. We were working through these issues very well with the director over the 8 months' time we were at this daycare; and she continuously assured us that our son was doing much better and reiterated over and over that if there were any danger of expulsion, we would know far ahead of time. She most recently told us this in September. Not THREE weeks after the last time she said this to us, I received a phone call from her (the director), letting me know that our son had bitten again. She said she had to send him home (and this had never happened before) and he wasn’t allowed to come back for 2 days. She then told me that when he returned, they would begin the dis-enrollment process and if he bit 2 more times, he would be removed from the school. Of course, I was flabbergasted and completely blind-sided - remove a 2 year old, seriously? And this wasn’t what she had told us only 3 weeks prior - and I'm sorry, he is TWO! The director had told us that this was appropriate two-year old behavior to help ease our concern and she said they would continue to work WITH us and the staff to improve the situation. It would be an understatement to say how angry, hurt and upset we were at how we were, all of a sudden, being treated by this woman; especially when we were doing everything we could do to work with the school. We even rolled with the punches and struggles of the high turnover rate of teachers that they were having in our son's classes. The director blatantly lead us on and made us think that she was on our side and that she wanted what was best for our son. The bottom-line is, the director is all about PR, and only represents the corporate office. This entire facility is corporate-driven. There is no personable and understanding administrator at this facility. We were completely fooled from the beginning. This school has bells and whistles – but, if it doesn’t have a good administration team, than the perks are worthless. This school has lost almost every GOOD, valuable teacher they have had during the time we were there – and teachers are continuing to drop like flies – because nobody is being treated the way that they should be. My husband and I were completely heartbroken when we had to leave because we had met some great families. The funny thing is, we have now been at our new daycare for over 4 months – and our son hasn’t had one issue. Children’s Learning Adventure is just a huge corporate conglomerate that wants to take your money – and is willing to put up a front to get it. I’m sorry for the long review; but I have to be honest because I don’t want someone else getting the go-around like we did. If this helps one family, then I have done my job. Oh, and the 2 stars is only because the infant room still has incredible teachers – my daughter absolutely adored them. We were devastated when we were forced to leave, specifically because we had to pull our daughter from the infant program and the teachers she had grown to love.

Don't judge a book...

Update: they did not refund my money as they had stated and no one in leadership ever contacted me to follow up on this. Scary place, do not bring children here.

I’m writing in hopes to reach the eyes of a senior leader or owner of this franchise. This was the first summer I enrolled my son at the Keller, TX location. It started out rough, but I just figured it was because it was a new environment for my son. He cried almost every day while attending this location due to unkind words from other kids and sub teacher behaviors. One of the descriptions of this company is a loving and nurturing environment, and that is not what we experienced. I brought this up to the leadership team at week two, they did listen to the concern and said they would follow up on it. When they called back, the director had said the teacher wasn’t aware of the unkind behavior but she would keep an eye out. For me, that was good enough for now. A few days later I dropped my son off and heard with my own ears the little girl my son described being mean to another student. Ms. Jennings, the main teacher heard it to and immediately spoke with the little girl about this and was very supportive to my son after that. If I wouldn’t have heard that interaction, I’m not so sure anyone would have believed it. The director never followed back up with me after that. Ms. Jennings, the main teacher, did do a very good job at keeping her ears open and comforting my son for the rest of his time there. She is loving and nurturing and I appreciate all of her efforts, she is a gem. The rotating teachers are the problem. My son has gone to the primrose since birth and then to Pre-K full day at the local school. I have never had a problem with him crying - ever. Not in any of the time he has been in childcare. We wanted to try out CLA because it looked fun and to give him a change of experience before the school year started. It worried me that he would cry almost every day at some point, but I did trust Ms. Jennings and my son did too, so we kept him enrolled. On our last day (yesterday), I was dropping my son off. Ms. Jennings was out that day, and when my son saw that she was out and saw the sub teacher he started to get tears in his eyes. The sub teacher looked at him and said “oh no, so is he going to cry all day like he always does?”. Those were her exact words, right in front of me. I can’t even begin to imagine what she says to the kids when a parent is not standing there. I immediately took my son and left. I spoke to the director about this and requested a refund for the day. This is not acceptable and frankly scary that you employ teachers that act like that around children. I want a senior leader to be aware of this so it can be fixed, because it is not being addressed well at the local level. I want to say thank you to Ms. Jennings to fulfilling the mission to this organization and for being so loving to my son. We will not be back, and I hope this review will help other parents make an informed decision. I gave a “2”vs a “1” only because of the main teacher, that did care and worked hard to help...