creme de la creme in Sterling

I couldn't agree with you more. Unless the director is removed from that position and bring new staff my children will be out of there also. Their last day will be Sept. 4th. It's a shame that we have to relocate our children from their community to another. I hope you and your daughter are happy in the new location.

Brokes

 

Very good forum. I have 2 kids in c/world. I'm not too happy either. My son loves fruit & I was alarmed to find out no fruit is served anytime. I talked to the director & she assured me they will serve fresh fruit in the future. She did have an attitude. In responding to one of the other parent regarding smelling cigarette smoke, I've seen both the director & her assistant smoking sitting in the parking lot. I hope its just cigarette though.

 

I have 2 kids at Mulberry and would definitely recommend them.
It is really scary seeing how Children's World has so many issues and even after the state has done an investigation nothing has changed. I was looking on the VA Dept of Social Services website and found the following contact numbers for complaints. Maybe if enough people call them they will take action. Here is the contact info:

Licensing Information Line
For information on training or filing complaints, call
1-800-KIDS-LIL ((800) 543-7545)
Fairfax Area
3959 Pender Drive, Suite 320
Fairfax, VA 22030
(703) 934-1505
Counties Served: Arlington, Loudoun, Fairfax
Cities Served: Alexandria, Fairfax, Falls Church,Leesburg

CJA

 

More than one person will have to contact Kristen Scott to have the director removed. Residents of broadlands should not have to remove their kids from this daycare. This daycare should fit the needs of the communities residents. Maybe if we all keep calling Kristen Scott something will happen. Also, we need to stand up and keep pushing until something does happen.

FYI, Children's World has a policy that your money will be refunded if you are not happy with your child's care. Maybe if everyone keeps asking for refunds something will sink in.

We must protect the children!

Concerned_Mom

 

I have a step-son at Children's World and it is clearly evident that the management of the center needs to be replaces ASAP. But we as parents must be the ones to intiate the process of getting better managing personnel in the center by expressing our concerns over and over to the regional director (Kristen Scott). Remember the old saying "The squeaky wheel gets heard". So instead of complaining on this website, get off your butts and do something about it. Too many of todays problems go uncorrected due to the general laziness of people. People like to complain but won't take the initiative to do anything about it. I took the time and spent 45 minutes on the phone with Kristen. She is very concerned about the ongoings at the center and welcomes all input from parents of children at the center. In fact it was my wife and I who gave her the web address for this community forum so she could see for herself, the numerous complaints that people have in general.

As for those who think Mulberry is a good center, think again. About a month ago they falsely accused 2 of their best teachers of child abuse when in fact it never happened. Licensing investigated the incident and detemined that their was no foundation of the accusation and that the two teachers had been wrongly accused and terminated with no just cause. (Lawsuit is now pending) For those of you that think Mulberry is so great, just ask licensing when was the last time the Ashburn center passed inspections or didn't have any violations (NEVER). Mulberry has gone downhill faster than superman and a speeding bullet ever since they hired the temporay director (Lisa) to take the place of the director who is currently on maternity leave.

Funny thing about Childrens World and Mulberry though, both of their directors are currently named Lisa???

 

I've also taken the time to speak with Kristen Scott. Actually, we spoke for an hour and half. She was very patient with me. Since I've been with CWLC for almost four years, I had a lot to say.My comments were not about just one incident it was my experienced with the center overall some were positive and others were negative. I pretty much described the difference between the past 2 Center Directors and present. According to Kristen it was considered valuable information. After speaking with her it was obvious she was not aware of the changes that went on in CWLC with 3 different Center Directors. She would like to hear from parents that have concerns with the Center. She's been with CWLC for 20 or 25 years (can't remember exactly) but new to CWLC in Broadlands and others in Loudoun County; therefore, she needs to hear from parents that were with CWLC or are currently with CWLC. So please take the time to call her. She has 4 children and understands what parent goes through when it involves the safety and security of our children. I felt Kristen was sincere when she apologized on behalf of Children's World LC and understanding about my decision to remove my children from the center.

Now,incase anybody is wondering, here are some examples I've experienced with CWLC at Broadlands.

1. Main problem- quality of staff especially in the two's- one teacher can't speak English.
2. Lack of experience in running a Center- meaning Center Director. She was great as a Lead Infant teach and Assistant Director but felt it was too soon be promoted to Center Director.
3. Staff profile is not posted anywhere to be read. They use to have it posted on the wall as soon as you opened the door.
4. It will be nice to post staff schedule on the wall so that we can get a feel when teachers arrive rather than assuming they are late or not coming in.
5. Notification posted when teachers are leaving and whose filling in. They use to have this now with the huge turn around I guess they felt it was too embarassing to post- BIG MISTAKE.
6. My Children getting hurt, especially in the Two's, and not calling the parent or forgeting to fill out an accident report.
7. Lots of biting in the Two's and nothing is being done but just letting the parent know. My son was bitten twice severely on the same day and the Center Director did not take the appropriate action.
8. No formal Parent-Teacher Conference ever scheduled since I've been there. Kristen was shock with this information because we are suppose to have 3 a year.
9. Dress Code- some teachers and Asst. and Center Directors are inappropriately dress. Even though most companies have dress down Friday it does not mean to wear skimpy shorts, tank tops and sneakers without socks. I don't think it gives the center a nice image when giving tours to new people. Sometimes the staff is also inappropriately dress during the week.
10. Last one- children, at least the two's, three's, fours, and five, should be engaged is some quiet activity, after snack time, until the parents arrived. My son's class, two's, are always running wild when I arrived between 5:45- 6:15 PM. It's no wonder he goes through a serious melt down when I take him home. He's too riled up.

So I hope this was helpful to many parents. If you have other ideas or serious concerns please call and addressed them with Kristen Scott (703-737-3220) her office is in Leesburg. She works very close with the VP of CWLC name Gretchen Yager?.

Good Luck to all.

Brokes

 

All,

I've been told by my husband, today, Aug. 7th, that the Center Director has been terminated effective immediately. Corporate is bringing someone from Fairfax today to take over in the interim.

Just an FYI:

Have a great day !

Brokes

 

I have just been informed about this forum yesterday and was shocked to read some of these comments. My child has attended Children’s World in Broadlands for over 2 years now and we were very happy with the Center Director that was there. When we got the letter yesterday we were furious. We will miss her dearly. She did everything she could to do her best and she was excellent at her job. She was there everyday when I dropped my child off and everyday when I picked my child up. I never saw her not there. She always greeted me with a smile and I knew she truly cared about the children in that center. My child will no longer be attending Children’s World because I don’t want my child to be apart of this mess. I went to drop him off today and there were no friendly faces in his room. Which made drop off time horrible.

I hope you all are happy and satisfied because I know there are a lot of parents that will truly miss her. I hope she keeps her head up and know that there are people out there that truly loved her as a Center Director. She did an excellent job!

Shocked Mother

 

I am happy that she is gone. This is exactly what was wrong with the former director - she had a chosen few favorite parents. If only she had treated all parents (and children of course!)the same. I wonder what her criteria for preferential treatment was....

However, this is not the only reason for removing her from that position. If you read the previous posts in this forum, you would see all the problems concerning Children's World. As the director, she has to be held accountable for all of this. I have complained numerous times to her about this, but nothing happened and finally grew tired of it and decided to transfer my son to another daycare.

Hopefully under new management, they can turn that daycare around.

 

My child has attended Children's World for four years and I have seen the center go through many ups and downs. There were times that there was no center director or assistant director and rooms were clearly out of ratio. Over the past two years my husband and I both have seen significant improvement. First I have to say that I question the maturity level of any parent that would question what the director was smoking while at work. It seems to me the whole intention of this forum is to slander the director. I believe that you all are hanging the wrong person. No decent person would ever understaff a center that would have money in the budget to do so. Children's World is to blame for many of the problems, not the management. How many times did you actually see the management in their offices, they were always in the classrooms. How can you effectively manage a center if you have to be a teacher. If you have issues with the quality of the teachers, call Kristen Scott and ask her why she pays her employees so poorly? If you thought that it was bad before, hang onto your seats because it is only going to get worse. You few parents who have ruined a good thing for the rest of us, get a life! Take your kids some where else. Think about how you have ruined a good thing for the rest of us.

 

I agree with Admin, we shouldn't point fingers but in this case we have to look at the whole picture. The whole picture is where we have had many complaints against the way the center was run in the last few years. Now that people have finally gotten together and expressed their concerns, action has finally been taken. Maybe some of you out there thought that Lisa (former Director) was a good fit for the job. All I ask of you is to go and talk to the current staff and find out for yourself. It's amazing that most of the staff was afraid to talk to Kristen when she visited the center because they thought it could be used against them. But luckily, the few staff members that expressed their concerns helped make a difference. We all will never know why the Director left or was released, but that is not the point. The point here is that upper management saw and listened to input from staff and parents which is what made the difference. As I said before, and I will say it again. I encourage all you parents out there to "Please" keep in contact with Kristen because she is a caring individual who wants only the best for your children.

Apparently, the former director had some influence over certain staff members. I say this because I find it strange that 3 or 4 of the staff members mysteriously called in sick today leaving the center very short staffed. Think about it!!! Granted that I have never been one to point fingers at a person for being the source of the problem, but in this case it was clearly the fault of mismanagement by the ex-director. There were many instances where she could of called on the regional director or even center directors to ask for help. At times the center was understaffed especially when licensing showed up unannounced. I am not saying that the ex-director was a bad person, but she just didn't know how to schedule her resources correctly.

I encourage all parents who have their children enrolled at Children's World to give the change of management a chance. It should be a sign of good things to come. Please be patient with the transition and believe in the future........

 

i just want to say that i work at childrens world and i see nothing wrong with the way lisa did her job. first of all, how many directors out there go to their centers on the weekend and work?? huh?, not many that i know of..both the director and asst. director were there on many occaisions. many of you have said that she was rude? well she wasnt, if she seemed stern in any way maybe it was because alot of you parents were rude and nasty anyways and just because you didnt get your way and COMPLAINED alot about stuff dont put it all on her. she was just doin her job. i cant believe how much she put up with certain parents and "two" staff members. and to the people who have said many LIES!!!!!!!!!! (and i know which ones you are!) About the center and lisa are full of it. 1) the comments made about ratios are wrong, there has never been 1 teacher with 8 infants 2)dont bash someone who wants to work because they cant speak english 3)there is ALWAYS fruit for lunch 4)if u werent happy why dont you just leave. why ruin someones life because you want to be a suck up to the DM's and licensing. you "two" teachers act like there is NOTHING wrong with your room, i beg to differ .why tell lies whether or not wht u believe is true when not everyone feels the way you do? no matter wht u say or think she worked her butt off. you people dont even know the half of it. to the people who read these dont just take in what these poeople are saying. Yea, all daycares have their problems but the things you PEOPLE are saying, you are going way to far. all of you act like she was this horrible person when in fact she wasnt. so get off your high horse, get over yourselves and get a life. and to two certain people, you need to stop calling the rest of the staff horrible, we work are butts off and u two think your the only ones who deserve all the credit. i heard something from a couple parents about "two certain" teachers, wanna know what it was, well here.."what have they ever taught my child" all i do is see them talking when i come to vist" and i see them watching the monitor in the front. so think about what you SAY and DO the next time you and other parents want to tell more lies. think real hard people, if u have the time since your to busy chatin up on here. also there have been many a parents ive talked to that are upset about the situation and have said that they will miss lisa. they also stated what a great job she did. so again anyone who writes on these things stop listening to all the bad hype about the center and her. so lastly the next time any of you want to get on here and say a whole bunch of lies, stop acting like babies or like your in highschool and go and try to be a center director. i KNOW none of you would do half a good a job as lisa did. think about it! LISA I MISS YOU AND LOVE YOU AND NO MATTER WHAT ANYONE ELSE SAYS OR DOES YOU DID AN AWESOME JOB!

 

AMEN IS RIGHT, SOMEONE HAD TO SAY IT!

 

ROFL!

 

Interesting message board we have going on here. Just for the record, I have no children in any daycares around here but I am involved in the operation of a business.
It seems to me that a profitable business relies on the satisfaction of its customers. In this particular case, the clients are the parents, the children and, in fact, the community as a whole. A careful reading of the posts as they originated here makes it apparent that this particular business was failing to provide its clients with satisfactory service. Not only were minimum licensing standards not being adhered to as a part of that service, but efforts to secure satisfactory service by parents through management of the business were not being given due consideration.
The end result is, not surprisingly, a loss of the business's client base. Apparently the center director lost her job as a direct result of parent complaints. It must be assumed, however, that upper management looked very carefully into any allegations from parents and staff in order to determine the source of the problem. Even though Virginia is a right to work state and employees can be terminated with or without just cause, few employers will fire their staff for no reason. It simply isn't a financially sound decision to do so since it costs more to hire, train and replace employees whether they are management or not than it does to provide an employee with the tools and training they need to perform well in their job.
It sounds like the daycare is trying to rectify any problems associated with it and I wish them all the best in their endeavour to provide the Broadlands community with a much needed service.

 

I know by now, the administration is going to probably take this topic off the site, but I wanted to get my opinion in before anyone who is visiting this site for the first few times, decided to make their decision on where to put their children for daycare.
What the parents and staff did on this site was completely outragious. 2 of these parents had only been there for a few weeks and never gave the director a chance to help them with their issues. 1 family had been at this center for almost 4 years, Lisa was only the director for 1. This family grew very close to her, then for some reason decided to turn on her. They claimed that their children were unhappy, yet everday I went in and out of their rooms, they had nothing but smiles on their faces, a willingness to learn and trust for their teachers. Obviously they trusted lisa with their children, or they would have left when the old director left. These parent all came in with smiles on their faces and talked to the director like nothing was wrong. She never knew what to think because mixed messages were given.
I feel that what was posted on here was only in retaliation to the fact that these parents were not fearful for the reason they should have been, which was because they felt their children were in harms way, or were not getting the proper education. No, these parents sat on here day after day after day, complaining because they did not get what they wanted. Whether it was their child being given bottles in the toddler room, which is against lisencing/policy,certain food served to them without an allergy form filled out by the family doctor, which is against policy, or the fact that their child has temper tantrums and does not get everything he/she wants, and seems unhappy for those 2 minutes, which is something every child at their age does, thats how they LEARN to do things like sharing and taking turns and being patient. So , when you put it all together, they are mad because the director was simply DOING HER JOB.
The teachers seem to be in on this mess too. well, for the newest members of this broadlands forum, there are 16 + members of staff in this facility. TWO out of those 16 agree with the decision made by Kristen Scott and helped her with this. One was mad because she wasnt able to drop her children off without charge while her and her husband went out for a night on the town. The 2nd teacher is BRAND NEW to the facility, and WOW, how ironic, was in the same classroom as the first one I mentioned. How would you feel if your son or daughter came home one day and said "Mommy, my teachers are mad." when you ask "How do you know this hunny." they reply "Because they have long faces" you ask, "why do they have long faces?" he/she replys "because you are being mean to them." Thats how the Director felt one night becuase this happened with her son who was in these teachers rooms. OH YEAH, THEY ARE REALLY THERE FOR THE KIDS. They went behind everyones back and began to make these accusations most of which were false, and some of which could have been changed if the new "District Manager" ccame to help work on them. The broadlands facility was the closest to her office, she came no more than TWO times prior to this mess. She has been in her proffessional position for months.
I have chosen not to be a part of this center and it's new management. This is only the beginning of everything. I hope everyone can see some of what really happened in this situation. Lisa did her job the BEST she could. Had she known about the "STRONG" concerns of these parents, she could have and would have done everthing the could to help them. She did not deserve this, the parents loyal to her do not deserve this, the teachers/ass.director/other staff do not deserve this and most of all the CHILDREN did not deserve this.
I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND THIS CENTER FROM THIS DAY ON. all of this shows what kind of people are still accociated with this facility. I can't imagine anyone wanting to send their child to a place like Children's World in Broadlands. If they are this sneaky with the director, imagine how much you as parents are going to be treated when you leave that center for the day. Come on, the children there have been through so much before this (ex: 3or4 different directors since the center opened, teachers coming and going, and now that the center was just getting back on its feet, another major change.
PARENTS : PLEASE think about all of this. Do not send your child here, it is not a healthy environment. I love children and that is why I am on here explaining this, to prevent the most innocent poeple in the world from being hurt. They do not deserve this, and neither do you.

P.S - Lisa, I love you. Keep your head high, this is a great opportunity to move onto bigger and better things where you can do what you love, helping and caring children. Kelly I wish you the best of luck. You both did a great job and dont let anyone tell you different. As for the 14 + people (excluding the 2 other members I spoke about) I will miss you dearly, The best team in child care has been broken, and things will never be the same there. Please stay strong and keep in touch. Parents, I apologize for everything, but PLEASE know that this was NOT Lisa'a decision, it was Kristen's, and she fought til the end. [V]

 

this forum is unbelievable, anyone notice how there is nothing about the three year old room? hmmm makes me wonder, now who is CALLING THE FAVORITES?? HUH? ~~>(dm's and licensing) (and believe me, the three year old class is just as bad), so concerned mom, use your head

 

I will not even waste my time explaining why parents have the right to protect their children. I reported only what the state told me. There were no violations in the three year old room. As for these two teachers I have no idea who they are.

I saw everything with my own eyes!!!

I tried multiple times to talk to both Lisa and Kelly. At least 10 meetings with them and no explanation and nothing ever fixed.

My child is not there but I am extremely happy new management has been brought in.

Concerned employee.. this board is for parents. It is to inform parents on what is happening in Broadlands. Do you live in Broadlands?

Concerned_Mom