La Petite Academy daycare?

[starlily]

We use one of their sister companies, Tutor Time. We like them, but it is really center and staff specific, even among the national chains. We toured 3 different Tutor Times and 3 different Kindercares and each one had a different feel to them even though the core components were the same.

[GailGoldie]

i used to sub for a chain when i lived in Tampa- and can say that some locations were literally disgusting - and some were amazing... so each center in a chain is going to vouch for it's self

[cherry1111]

The one I visited in my city was horrible. But I think it is a case of each location being different.

[Deleted]

We looked at several. One we loved, one we thought was meh, and one we thought was okay but convenient. Long story but we are at the one we loved but that is a lot less convenient. We have been very happy there so far but we did find each location to be very different.

[lauralala]

Little_Moxie, what part of town are you moving to? I'm not in Houston any more, but I lived there for years and still have a lot of friends and family there. If you don't like La Petite or just want more suggestion, I might be able to help.

[lauralala]

YGPM back

[madringal]

They are the only chain daycare in my area, and they always have the WORST inspection reports. I check them out from time to time, because I get a discount from my employer, but I have never used them because the inspection reports from the state.

[starlily]

Nov 1, 2012 11:01:28 GMT -5 @littlemoxie said:

Nov 1, 2012 10:19:20 GMT -5 madringal said:

They are the only chain daycare in my area, and they always have the WORST inspection reports. I check them out from time to time, because I get a discount from my employer, but I have never used them because the inspection reports from the state.

Fuck. I had no idea such things existed. We were thinking nanny until recently, so I have done zero daycare research until like 2 days ago.

I've heard good things about the one near me, so we'll see what happens Monday. Are there any non-obvious things to ask/look for? Or even obvious things

Count the child- teacher ratio in all the classrooms you see.

Ask when their last inspection was and what violations were found, if any. They shouldn't balk at giving you that information.

[cherry1111]

I used this site a lot when looking for our day care. You can look up what kind of "deficiencies" have been found and reported:

www.dfps.state.tx.us/Child_Care/Search_Texas_Child_Care/ppFacilitySearchDayCare.asp

[Deleted]

Nov 1, 2012 11:51:04 GMT -5 cherry1111 said:

I used this site a lot when looking for our day care. You can look up what kind of "deficiencies" have been found and reported:

www.dfps.state.tx.us/Child_Care/Search_Texas_Child_Care/ppFacilitySearchDayCare.asp

we did too. Don't just look at the # of deficiencies. Read what the deficiencies are. For example. I saw places wit 3 deficiencies and they were serious safety issues, then otters with 10 and they were minor paperwork issues not involving vaccination records or background check info.

[Here]

They are so so around here. We didn't look at any.. When I toured places, I focused on the toys and books available, organization, attitude of the employees. One place had a high ratio and was chaos. The toys seemed basic. The place we picked was organized and had lots of developmental toys at all ages.