Children Of Life Academy

I don’t like to give bad reviews to small business owners but what happened to our boy on his last day of pre-school was unacceptable. I am a foster mom and had two boys that attended COLA, one of them graduated last year and the little one was still there. We see everybody at the school 3 days a week and bio mom takes him to class two days a week. This arrangement went on for an entire year. On 7/14, we dropped off our boy to his last day of pre-k. My husband picked him up early to bring him home and get him ready for his ceremony and at 11:47 I receive I text message from my husband asking if I noticed a scratch and bruise on his face. I had not noticed any scratches or bruises but I remember taking a video of him that morning eating breakfast and took pictures of him before he went to school and those injuries were not there. He came home with a very noticeable scratch on his lower lip, a scratch above his lip and a bruise on the other side of his face. By this I had already sent the director and the owner a text asking what had happened at school and why we weren’t notified. I was very upset and asked to find out what had happened. When my husband was at the school Ms. Isis told him that my boy said it happened at home but he told my husband it happened outside during one of the recess breaks. When I asked my boy, he said that a teacher was there, he cried and also a student was there. Ms. Barbara responded to my text by saying “we will take it up with his mom thank you”. That was not the answer I was expecting, I wanted an answer. My boy just came home with his face messed up on his final day. Any parent would be concerned and want answers right away. I called the bio mom and let her know what had happened, since we had already agreed to meet at the school at 1 I told her I would see her there and we could speak with Ms. Barbara and try to find out what happened. The doors were locked when we got there but a little after 1, Ms. Barbara arrived and she passed by me and completely ignored us. I asked bio mom to ask if we can speak and she said no because it was graduation day and she could set up a meeting for Monday. Ms. Barbara locked the door and left us there. When the doors opened so the students could come in, I went to sit down, and bio mom went to speak with Ms. Barbara and my husband followed. During that exchange, Ms. Barbara would not speak to my husband as well. I understand that bio-mom is the legal person that Ms. Barbara has to notify and speak to but it is not up to Ms. Barbara to deny speaking at all when it was obvious that the bio-mom wanted us there and had no issue with us hearing what had happened. Bio-mom consented to us being there so Ms. Barbara had no right to deny us information or to make that decision for bio-mom. I believe that Ms. Barbara only wanted to speak to bio-mom because she knows that she could easily intimidate, manipulate, or talk down to her which she can’t get away with when speaking to us. From the point when Ms. Barbara first arrived at the school, she was more concerned with ignoring us and being disrespectful then to actually show any concern about the boy. Not once did she look at him, ask about him, or inquire about what had happened. She was more upset about us “demanding” to know what happened than anything else. Ms. Barbara further stated that the boy getting injured “did not matter” because it was the last day of school. Funny thing was that less than 48 hours before I was yelled at by a teacher during a field trip on a hot day because I was giving my hungry and thirsty boy water and food. A day later, Ms. Barbara confronted me again about that same incident. Apparently giving water and food to a child does matter but a child getting hurt 48 hours later “does not matter”. Ms. Barbara is the owner of COLA and as such has to take ownership when things go wrong. She can’t hide behind her bad attitude or want parents to wait over 72 hours later to have a meeting with her. Apparently, she had no time after the ceremony, or Saturday or Sunday to review the video of the incident. She has no people skills to say something to the effect that she is getting prepared for a graduation but will look into the incident immediately thereafter. She constantly escalated the issue instead of being professional. A simple demonstration that she cared about what had happened would have sufficed. She was more upset about us “demanding” to know what happened like this incident was something insignificant. Apparently it was insignificant because in her words, a child getting hurt on the last day of school “does not matter”. Some people try to hide their true self behind religion. Ms. Barbara puts on this façade that she is this caring and nurturing educator and just because she runs a religious school she thinks that those qualities, values, and morals that one associates with religion will somehow be attributed to her as well. People will undoubtedly show their true qualities, values and morals and it took this incident to show her true colors!