Grasslawn Children's Center ripoff Don't trust your child with the lowest bidder! Redmond Washington

I am very happy to hear that they hired someone new!! It got really bad and I wish that I still worked there today.. Even though I went through alot while working there, I do miss working with the children! I will have to stop by sometime with my son!! Again I am very happy to hear that!

Thanks

Hello my name is Gretchen Orgill and I was hired by the owner of Grasslawn Children's Center to be the new Director and fix all of the things that had gone horribly wrong with the daycare center. I have been working in the Early Childhood field for 13 years and I absolutely LOVE it! I have a Degree in Early Childhood Development and love to attend workshops and trainings on what is new and exciting in the field. Upon my hirer the school was cleaned and sanitized the falling staff was let go and the school was re-staffed with professionals holding degrees in the Early Childhood field. The school received a major update to the inside of the building including New carpet, New laminate flooring, 3 coats of fresh paint on every wall, new furniture in every classroom, and New toys for every age group. The facility has been re-structured splitting children into more appropriate age groups and ratios. Toddler 1 has 6 children from 12 months to 24 months with one fun and loving teacher, toddler two has 14 children from 24 months to 36 months and two high energy and active teachers, our preschool is for 10 children who are 3 years old with one energetic and imaginative teacher, and our Pre-Kindergarten program houses 10 children who are 4 and 5 years of age our Pre-K teacher is a caring and nurturing person who does an amazing job of preparing our children to head out into the great big world of kindergarten. We have built a wonderful child centered curriculum that includes a daily Art, Sensory, Language, Fine motor, Large motor, Science, Dramatic play, Small group, Music and movement, and two Circle times. We also have an extensive outdoor area that includes a covered play area for stormy days the children spend a great deal of their day outdoors running, climbing, digging, bike ridding and even going for nature walks. It is our main goal to provide and active and engaging early learning environment that the children love to come to every day. With our open-door policy we love to have parents and family members as involved as possible in our school and keep the lines of communication as open as possible with both myself and our teaching staff. We are a very small and personal school with a very homey feel we only enroll 40 children and have 7 full time staff members so we can give all of our children a lot of personal attention everyday!

I worked at Grasslawn Childrens Center for 8 months, from 2005 to 2006... In the begining I loved my job!! I was the Teacher for the Pre-Schoolers, which were the ages 2-3..The other teachers were awesome and The Director/ Manager at the time was awesome... Everyday there was awesome...


About 2 weeks later we were told that we were getting a new Director/Manager... Everything was cool for a while... I continued having a great time with the Pre-Schooler's and loving my job... But there was something different about this Manager that got me thinking... She was always in her office, and did not care much for the facility... She would not interact with any of the children, and she would complain about some of the children and thier parents...

After a while had passed I noticed that she would arrive about 10 with all 3 of her children who were about 12 years and up.. She would be there for an hour, leave at about 11 and not come back for the rest of the day... She did that daily... Alot of the parents asked about here and how come they never see her... I told them I didnt know why she was gone so much....

Then I noticed one of the other teacher's was getting ripped off on her pay...She had a battle with the manager and the owner for a while till she got fed up and finally quit... Thats when I started getting shifted between My class to Pre-K, to the toddlers...

I would be shifted to the toddler room at the end of the day... I was told that I needed to be there until all the toddlers got picked up and then I could come back to my classroom...

So when I started going into the toddler room I noticed that alot of the parents started complaining to me about Diaper rashes that their children were getting from not being changed enough... One Family in particular withdrew thier child because of that situation...

I was told by a couple of parents that they were told I was the main teacher in the toddler room and that I was just to lazy to change their children... When I found this out I went to every teacher to find out why they said that and no one addmitted to it... So I just apologized to each parent and made sure that I changed them as soon as I was shifted to the toddler room...

After that insident.... I noticed that the director had finally hierd someone new... But instead of putting that teacher in the toddler room, she was put in my room and I was transfered to the toddler room....

Everything started great... The kids loved me and had a good time... I had a set schedual for them and everything... Then one day at lunch another one of the teachers was complaining about the director and what she was doing to that teacher... and soon enough that teacher also quit.....

But right away an older woman was hierd... she would help out in each class room because she only worked half a day... This particular teacher was mean to the children and alot of the kids would not let me leave her alone with them....

After all of that I noticed how run down the Daycare started to look...The rooms were very dirty, The outside toys were falling apart, We also had rats, and the toys were not getting properly sanatized every night...

I started getting complaints about all of this from the parents when they came to pick up thier children... I brought it to the directors attention and she did nothing about it....

Then I noticed that when I went to the director for anything she would be really rude to me... She started telling me that the children are being changed to much and that i needed to change them less... I did not listen to her because of the fact that if i would have, the toddlers would have gotten horrible diaper rashes and I would be back to where I was when I first started in the toddler room..

Then the director always came to me and told me what i was doing wrong all the time... Later that night when the parents came to pick up their children I asked them If they were happy with the daycare and having me as their childrens teacher, they told me that they were not happy with the fact that the place looks horrible and that our manager wont do anything about it.. But they loved me as a teacher and that thier children are happy and I am teaching them great things...

I posted what i was teaching them weekly in there sign in sheets... A couple weeks later i was doing my normal job when the phone rang and one of the teachers told me that the phone was for me!!

No one called me durring work hours so i was cerious... It was the manager she told me that she had to let me go because the parents didnt like me and that because of me we lost some children... She did even have the decentsey to tell me in person she had to call me on the phone to tell me...

The children that we lost were in another class room... The one I am not the teacher of.... But I was fierd because of that... I made sure on a regualr basis that the parents were satisfied with what i did for their children...

After I was fierd i was told by several parents that I would run into in the store or at the park that i was greatly missed by everyone (parents and children of the daycare).. I just think they way she fierd me and what she fierd me for was a rip off..


Thanks for reading

Kelsey....