Kindercare And Knowledge Learning Time to contact the media about what is going on here, this is the largest childcare company in the country, it is time the public is made aware Carmel Indiana

 I am currently on my break from kindercare and have just got off the phone with dcfs, the health department and our corporate office. There are two children with confirmed scabies, it is spreading, the parent said it was treated- it clearly wasn't. Our coordinator is hiding it from current enrolled families and prospective new families (all she has done to notify people was put up a scabies info printout on one classroom door that no one sees) any time parents come in she takes the sign down. I asked her what she was doing to take care of the issue at hand (ie sending the kids home until it is GONE, removing fabrics from the class that could be, and most likely are, contaminated, etc) she said we vacuumed and sprayed Lysol. I am speechless. I am putting in my two weeks notice and never looking back. They also tried to force me to write a FAKE incident report for a child that has a bit mark that I did not witness happen, they directed me to "come up with something to tell the parents" I refused and left. This place is a JOKE.

I think I might need to get an attorney involved as well. I worked there for about 5 months, and my son has been sick since he started. A child in a different room had scabies and a few of the teachers got it. I had an infant enrolled and as I was dropping him off the caretaker in that room was telling me about how she thinks she has scabies. She was telling me this as she was holding babies and changing diapers! The director came in with information about scabies to give the teacher while I was still in the room. This teacher eventually left and went to the doctor to find out she did in fact have scabies. I asked the director if the teacher had told her she might have scabies before the director put her in the infant room. She said no, then she said well we were waiting for the doctor to call back. That is the reason I put in my two weeks. Well that is the straw that broke the camels back. I don't think they should have put a teacher who thinks she has an infectious disease to care for infants.

I 'm glad( well not really glad) but am finding it very interesting reading all these complaints about different Kindercares around the country. I didnt think that the problems were only around here. It seems to be a problem in general. While I worked at Kindercare( which was for 2 years and 3 months) we went through 3 directors. The first one moved to arizona, the second one moved back to wisconsin to run a diff kindercare . the new one who took over for her was previously the asst director and she got fired for not knowing what the hell she was doing( however they told us she was "relocated" what a crock. Then we got the director that I quit on she was an evil evil woman. I ended up getting Non hodgkins lymphoma while working there and Im sure it was caused by the major amounts of stress I was under while working there. The whole time I was having my treatments I was treated like crap and I ran a room of 8 toddlers and did more work than healthy people yet the director managed to always find something to complain about including pulling me out of my classroom and putting me in another one saying I was missing too much work. UM HELLO IM GOING THRU CANCER TREATMENT and working 30 hours a week I dont think i was missing too much work. I wouldnt send my worst enemy to work at any kindercare anywhere!!!!!

I would like to add to my first comment, after re-reading and in relation to another comment. In no way did I mean to imply that any past or previous employees are incompetent or uneducated. I'm not sure how many parents ask what the qualifications are for the teachers. Even if just one job opening doesn't require any training, I'm sure there are other locations out there that possibly don't either. If it matters, I'd ask the director.

After reading numerous reports on this website in relation to the company, it seems like people are expecting first class child care (which was the point I was originally trying to make in reference to training). But individualized care is next to impossible with a daycare with so many kids. I would research alternatives and talk to several other people whose children have gone there. After all, what business is going to tell you all the negatives about it? Don't take their word for it.

Years ago I worked at Children's Discovery Center, at the time that I was working toward my degree in child development. (Just a note- teacher requirements vary by state; in the state of CA, in order to work in a childcare setting you need to have at least 6-12 units of education)

My first semester of school, I was looking for childcare for my then-15 mo. old daughter. It was a few months later that I began to work there.

As a parent touring the school, they paint such a rosy picture. Once I became educated, I realized how bad this place was.

I worked there just over a year, and when I left, not ONE single person that worked there when I was hired still worked there, other than the director.

All they care about is that they look good. They had binders that contained the "curriculum" we were supposed to use, and most of the time it was age-inappropriate. Anyone who has any training in childcare knows the best way these little ones learn is through hands-on exploration (heck, CDC even had that stated in their parent handbook!) but most of the activities were "...have the children watch as you..." Now, tell me a bunch of 2-3 year olds want to sit and watch you do anything, NO!! They want to crawl around and pull things off the shelves. They want to be involved!

There were never enough supplies to do anything, either. In our center, there were 6 classrooms, and all of us had to share 4 gallons of paint! It was fall, so we had green, brown, yellow and orange. I wanted to do a color mixing project using primary colors, but was told by the director that we had no more money in the budget for any more paint until 2 months later!

It is nearly impossible to run an appropriate curriculum in your classroom without the necessary supplies; at the rate they pay you, it is certainly not in your budget to pay for the supplies yourself.

After I finally left, a few months later the director was fired because she couldn't get enrollment up - -this was because, by this time, the center had such a bad reputation in town, the parents were wising up. And, alot of times, when a teacher quit, the parents would follow that teacher to her new employer.

The center also had such a bad rep at the college that nobody would even apply to work there.

That's when they changed their name to knowledge universe - like they were trying to pretend they were a new center.

Whether you are a teacher looking for employment or a parent, stay away from corporate centers like Kindercare, LaPetite, or any of the others.

The big wigs in the corporate office, the ones who make the budget decisions and curriculum plans have no CLUE what is appropriate for children...they just want to make as much money as possible, with the lowest wages, lowest supplies budget, and highest tuition.

You are far better off going to "Jane Doe's Daycare." At least in a small private center you know the owner and decision maker actually knows the kids they are providing for.

I went to Kindercare in Greenwood, IN in the late 80s, early 90s. I am in no way damaged or harbor negative feelings from my experiences as an adult now. However, there were several incidents that should never happen under proper supervision that occurred while I was there. If you have ever looked at the KinderCare website, where you can submit an application, it states "Requirements for this position include You must be 18 years old and have previous experience working with children." (http://jobsearch.knowledgelearning.careers.monster.com/getjob.asp?JobID=70862346&AVSDM=2008%2D04%2D15+13%3A37%3A58&Logo=0&pg=4&col=dlt&sort=rv&vw=b&fn=8994)
Basically, that is saying they want glorified babysitters. It's mass babysitting service. MOST of the staff I remember was very helpful, responsible, and easy to get along with. But you have to keep in mind, they don't have to have a degree or any formal training. It was very obvious to me as a child that some of the employees were there for the money, wanted to go home and not because they had a passion for child care. There was always a person from time to time who seemed irritable and I recall most of the time the kids playing games, outside on the playground, or coloring (when there weren't field trips). I would hardly call that a learning center. I think anything learning related is focused on the younger children and they just try to occupy the older kids. Perhaps some things have changed since I've been. Maybe this isn't quite the support you're looking for, and I apologize for that. But I think that when enrolling your child here, you should know the employees are not trained professionals and are probably not equipped with the knowledge to teach or properly care for a variety of children with different needs. I do think the requirements to be hired should be changed though. The management will only be as strong as it's weakest link (the employees). If the child care was fantastic, I think problems with management wouldn't seem as big of a deal. But piled on top of each other, it's worse.

I would definatley be in support of your lawsuit. My child went through such a horrible experience at Kindercare, in Camarillo, CA. To my horror, I found out his rights were being violated, and the director lied and tried to cover everthing up when I filed a complaint. You can read my Rippoff report under Kindercare Camarillo.

/Corrupt-Companies/Kindercare-Knowledge/kindercare-knowledge-learning-AY828.htm

My son seems to have developed some frustrations from all of this. I had to take a family leave to care for him.

e-mail me and I will give you my info in support of any lawsuit against Kindercare-Knowledge Learning Corporation! (((ROR redacted)))

CLICK here to see why Rip-off Report, as a matter of policy, deleted either a phone number, link or e-mail address from this Report.

On their website it claims they promise to treat your kids with their individual needs. That is a lie. I've said more than twice my child does not eat meat and I've come in to check up and my toddler was sitting at the table crying unattended.

The whole time my child was sick. Never before when my child was at home was he sick and as a result we all got sick.

The supervisor told my hubby and I from day one that dropping in unnannounced was encouraged so I did only to find my child crying and the supervisor blamed me for it even though a teacher informed me he was crying for a long time before showing up.

My child is a very picky eater and they refused to compromise their meals nor did they allow me to bring his own food in.

I had to give two weeks notice and get out.

The director was so nice at first too but she ended up lying about a payment due and our verbal agreement so now I'm waiting to hear back from corporate and probably won't so will have to pay for it.


I would not be surprised if Kindercare loses alot of decent teachers either because the supervisor also scolded a teacher for letting a parent watch their child have fun on the playground.

Kindercare and Knowledge Learning Center are one and the same. Was that not being told to it's customers?
Way back in the 80's there was Daybridge Learning Center, Kinder Care, Children's World and Mary Moppets. (A bunch of other ones too)
In the later 80's Mary Moppet's was bought out by Children's Discovery Centers. Around the same times Daybridge Learning Center and Children's World merged to form Children's World Learning Center. Kindercare was still on it's own.
Now Children's Discovery Centers is called Knowledge Learning Center and has for quite some time. They bought Children's World Learning Centers and Kindercare and operating under the Kindercare name. (I hope my memory is correct on this!)
I have worked at all of these centers in the past over the 25 odd years in child care though totally burned out by the demands and havent worked in a center for over 10 years now. I would imagine the quaility of care (which was never that great) is still status quo or do you have any observations that show otherwise?