Child Care #1, Gaithersburg

Our daughter was part-time at Childcare #1 from 18 months, to 5 years old. She loved her experience there, was always looking forward to going there and is still friends with other children that attnded. We wanted to find a Russian-speaking daycare to reinforce the Russia that she was learning at home. We visited a couple other daycares, but decided on this one mainly because of positive energy and excellent communications skills of the owners. Our daughter is now in 1st Grade, but we still keep in touch with the owners and our daughter has fond memories of her time there. We were lucky to find such an excellent daycare, and Russian speakers as well!

I am so disappointed with my lasting impression of this daycare. This was my daughter's second daycare this year. We pulled her out of the previous one because they no longer offer Russian. She had only been there under 4 months. She has just started to not cry at drop and loved to stay at pick up and have me play with her. I was really happy with many things there and had little or no complaints until I got a text (not even a call) from the head of the director on a Thursday after my husband picked up saying that the following Thursday they no longer had room for my daughter. What happened to a signed contract and agreement? What about the stress on a child after she just got used to the environment. I was so upset. I went back and read their agreement and it says nothing that they could do this. What's even worse was the week before we went on vacation and still had to pay them 50% and clearly they knew they were going to do this. Had I been working on the days and my in laws weren't in town I would have gotten a lawyer involved for breaching the contract. But why would I want to take my daughter there anymore when clearly they don't have her best interest at heart or the respect to even talk to me in person to give me reasonable notice. If you are to terminate the contract with them you require 4 weeks. I then texted her asking for a copy of our signed contract no reply. I called them to ask when I could pick up my daughters things, no reply. I then had to show up where at the front door all she said was "the kids are sleeping." She brought me her things outside and I then had to remind her of things she forgotten after she had said everything was there. She got her things gave them to me and that's it, no apology no nothing. Later when I signed my daughter up for the new Russian daycare in Germantown I texted her asking for her medical forms so I didn't have to go back to her doctor again and pay $10 per form. No reply. My lasting impression is all they care about is their money and that's just a shame.