Willowdale Children’s Academy, West Chester | Fees, Rankings, Address, Admission, Vacancies, Reviews & More

This daycare has been one major disappointment. I was in a situation where I had to find child care FAST. I scheduled a tour at Westtown Children’s Academy-West Chester (WCA-West Chester). Upon arrival, I was able to enter through the back door of the school. I thought it was the correct entrance, but, seeing the empty stairwell, I quickly inferred it was a back entrance. I informed the director, Jackie, of this concern. She told me a staff member was taking out diapers, but the door should have been closed.

On my second visit to finalize registration, I felt I should exercise due diligence and check the back door again. I was so surprised to find it able to be opened again! This was Feb. 15, 2018, the day after the Parkland, FL massacre. I again expressed my concerns about building safety. The director was surprised, but she assured me she would post signage that the door was to be closed at all times.

On my third visit, the back door was propped open with a milk crate! I chose to withdraw my son before he began childcare at WCA-West Chester. I did not feel like my safety concerns were being taken seriously. This facility prides itself for being 4 Keystone Stars and abiding by the National Association for the Education for Young Children and Pennsylvania Department of Welfare; Health and Human Services standards. I did not witness these high standards of safety during my three visits.

To make my opinion even worse, the owner Ms. Keller would not return my deposit after expressing all of my above concerns. The owner prioritizes her business’ income over customer service.

***edited in response to owner’s remarks: The facts stated by the owner are completely untrue. I chose to go public with my concerns not over money but because they were not taken seriously in a timely manner. The owner’s demeanor is far from professional. It should noted that many of the positive reviews are from her and family members.

Very bad experience with a mix of poor management, poor oversight of kids (toddler our case) and lies from the school on what goes on there during the day.

It was overall poorly managed – there was no consistency on teacher aids Present every day. I picked up my child different times and saw the ratio of teacher-toddler in the backyard wasn’t compliant with the state requirement. They mostly sat and watched the toddlers play outside.

Our kid got sick every single week and we asked if they have protocoles for cleaning and hygiene especially back in COVID times, which they replied yes. We then just took their word and assumed it’s building immunity.

The last straw was when our kid got bitten at three different spots the same day – clearly signaling there was negligence if another kid had all the time to bite our kid on the cheek, upper right back and left shoulder without any adult intervening. They didn’t call us and didn’t signal the 3-4 bites in the incident report but had only one bite marked which confirmed that not only there was no appropriate supervision (or Ratio teacher kid not respected or having inexperienced folks supervising kids) but also nobody verified if she was bitten elsewhere until we did at home. Our kid (1.5 at the time) was terrified to relive her jacket for two hours after coming home, just crying. It took some time for her to feel ok, safe and process the trauma.

Our experience pushed us to look at other places.