Child Craft

Our daughter was only in Cassandra’s care for a short period of time as we pulled her due to a report by one of the facilities assistants of suspected mistreatment by the owner, Cassandra Arnold. If you would like more information on the nature of the suspected mistreatment, I would encourage you to look up the various reports filed against the facility (#13 421 831) with the California Department of Social Services. You can call (510) 622‑2602, or look online with the following link, though details about the filed complaints do not currently show up on the website.
Though some of the findings in the above mentioned investigation were inconclusive, I am still glad that we pulled our daughter and found another daycare, as she is much happier in her current situation. After her first few days at Cassandra’s my daughter started going into hysterics at every drop off and pick up, and would even cry if we just walked past Cassandra’s house. She also became very clingy to myself and my husband which was uncharacteristic of my outgoing and social little girl. At the time I thought it may just be normal separation anxiety, but now that I see how happy she is at her current daycare facility I think she was genuinely distressed. If this unhappiness was actually from mistreatment, or just from a dislike of the environment I will never know, but I am positive it was not the right place for her.
I would also like to mention that we were not the only parents to pull our child from Cassandra’s care at this time. I believe all but 2 children left this facility at the same time as we did, most of which had been with Cassandra much longer than our family. The reports of mistreatment was definitely the impetus for this mass exodus, though a number of other concerns were brought up by parents at the time, including Cassandra’s strict and demeaning treatment of her assistants that caused a very rapid turnover rate, and the lack of structured activities and enrichment for the children and they grew. In all fairness, many of the parents had good things to say about the facility as well, though for most it seemed the good were outweighed by the negative.
As far as environment goes, the facility is quite small and there are not many activities for the children, as far as I could tell, besides free play. Though I would not really recommend this facility to anyone, I would say it is setup to serve infants under the age of 1 who are not very mobile.