San Dimas-Foothill KinderCare

My daughter’s 2 children have attended Kindercare for a year now. She briefly said, «Kindercare is an excellent academic place that feels like a family.»
I agree with her, but add my thoughts,
As a Marriage and Family Therapist, I teach the greatest gifts to give a developing child are predictability and reliability. These two qualities have been evident in the staff and environment of this Kindercare.
My 5 year old grandson has some daily hurdles with his sensory processing and impulsive behaviors. His classroom teacher has been sensitive, accommodating and effective all her interactions. She has also been an excellent communicator and strategist as needed with our family and the staff.
My granddaughter, now 17 months, has had attentive and creative care givers. Her uniqueness is applauded, as is seen with the other infants and toddlers in her classroom. The intentional social, cognitive and executive functioning growth opportunities set Kindercare apart from a good infant/​toddler day care.
Weaknesses have improved with the arrival of current director.

My 1 year old daughter been coming here since she was 3 months old. She loves her teachers and enjoys going in everyday. They have a lot of hands on activities that help your child development as they grow. My wife and I work full time and is blessed to have found such great daycare near us. Keep up the good work!

My daughter loves it here, the teachers are very warm and caring. She is enjoying her phonics class and is learning very much.

PROS: –teachers are very nice, welcoming, warm, patient. My son learned alot while being there, and I’m thankful for the handful that did care there!
CONS: –teacher turn around is frequent? I’d say they go thru teachers every 6 – 8 mos?
–you can feel the tension when you walk in the place.
–you are NOT called and notified of an incident regarding your child till the end of day or till your child tells you themselves and shows you the bruising/​bite/​bump.
–LACK OF COMMUNICATION AND UNFORTUNATELY PROFESSIONALISM FROM THE DIRECTOR.

I know this is long but this is about childcare so I wanted to be thorough.
My son attended this Kindercare part-​time for approximately 1 year until he was almost 2 years old. We chose this daycare mostly because we met and loved their director. She is warm, genuine, and obviously cares about all of the children. The infant teachers are also amazing! I never questioned his care in the infant room. He was fed well & changed frequently. He used to go even on days I didn’t have work. He just was learning well & enjoyed it so we sent him. His care in the toddler room was generally good but with some questionable situations.
This year my son had an injury that was likely caused while in their care. He was dropped off at school as usual, but when he was picked up he wouldn’t use one of his arms. We took him to the doctor and my son was diagnosed with a dislocated elbow, also called a «nursemaid’s elbow». His doctor said it usually caused by an adult pulling too hard on a child’s arm. The other possibility is if a child is holding an adult’s hand and suddenly drops his body down. The injury was not permanent. We received no notices or calls about an incident at school, so we assumed it was an unfortunate and unexplainable accident.
Then, less than 1 month later, he went to school, came home and wouldn’t use his OTHER arm. He kind of just let it dangle. We went to the ER and the best diagnosis of the arm was another dislocated elbow. This doctor informed us that an adult would know when this occurred because my son would have cried. We did not receive a phone call about any incidences. We did have a little note on his daily report saying my son was just favoring his other arm. None of the staff took responsibility for either incident. Once again, his arm luckily has no permanent injuries.
We are not upset if these were accidents. We are upset because these are very suspicious situations. How did somebody not notice a dangling arm? Or did someone notice & was covering for other staff? Why didn’t we get a phone call? How did this happen twice? DID SOMEONE FEEL LIKE MY SON DESERVED THIS??? We don’t know if they were accidents or intentional. But I feel like somebody is not telling the truth about what happened. I hope there are no other children that went through this.
On the plus side (eh, if there is one), their corporate investigated everything. Their findings were inconclusive, which was disappointing but expected. Also, all appropriate agencies were contacted either by us or the school, including the Sheriffs Dept.
I am not writing this to be vindictive. I just know that other parents would appreciate this information. My son, obviously, no longer goes to daycare. It saddens me that he can’t go anymore but it absolutely crushed his father and me to know he was in pain and injured twice & we couldn’t do anything about it.

Love this place! You can tell that the staff really care about your child and that it is more than just a job to them. Will miss this place when I eventually have to move my lil’ one to a place closer to home.