NSF Bright Horizons - does anyone know if they are closing?
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Anonymous
| I have been following the NSF Bright Horizons threads for several months. It is my understanding that the board that oversees the child care center (Ballston Child Care Consortium Inc.) may consider revoking the contract with Bright Horizons and hire another provider. Does anyone know if this is possibility is in the works? |
Anonymous
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As of now, that’s still a possibility, although no one’s saying for sure. From what I understand, there are several possibilities:
1) The County may revoke the Bright Horizons’ license (apparently Bright Horizons has still not gotten its act together on some issues); 2) The State may revoke its license as well, or separately. The State and County overlap as far as regulation, and both are conducting investigations into Bright Horizons for the mismanagement problems at NSF. 3) The overseeing board may opt to terminate Bright Horizons’ contract for the Center. In this event, the Board will select another daycare provider, and in theory operations will continue with little or no interruption of service, but with the Center being managed by another corporation. I believe the Board has been interviewing other providers, but I don’t know who. 4) The overseeing board may choose to continue with Bright Horizons. I believe that Bright Horizons’ “provisional license” expires at the end of September, so families should find out pretty soon about #1 and #2 pretty soon. As far as #3/4, I assume that the Board can choose at any time to ditch Bright Horizons, since the company has committed so many violations, one would assume that would be more than enough justification to remove them as a provider. |
Anonymous
| Thank you! |
Anonymous
|
Bright Horizon’s “provisional” license for the NSF-CDC daycare has been extended through the end of 2011. Parents were notified of this on September 28.
For some reason, Bright Horizons was unable to get many of its the problems solved during its previous 3-month provisional license period, with both ratios and missing documentation (despite allocating about a half-dozen managers to doing so). Fortunately though, there have been no further cases of abuse for the past two months or so. But based on the continuing problems, Arlington County did not give then a regular license back, but they didn’t revoke their license either. My own opinion is that extending the provisional license is bad for families here. Lots of staff have left and we know that no qualified candidate will want to come teach in a center that has a history of recent, serious problems, and on top of that has a provisional license that can be revoked at any time. Same goes for the search for another new full-time director. Staff morale has become horrendous here among the staff that are remaining, and obviously this impacts the children’s care. There is still a possibility that the CDC’s Governing Consortium will choose a new daycare company besides Bright Horizons soon, so in that event we can start getting this Center back to normal much quicker. |
Anonymous
| 18 state violations with 100 incidents from the VA Sept Licensing report online. What a disaster |
Anonymous
If the best you can say about your daycare is "there have been no further cases of abuse for the past two months or so" , then I think it's time to find a new daycare! |
Anonymous
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http://www.dss.virginia.gov/facility/search/cc.cgi?rm=Details;ID=24627;search_exact_fips=013
Check out the posting from July 2011 - Discipline shall be constructive in nature... intended to redirect children to appropriate behavior and resolve conflicts. Evidence: Staff A yelled at a child, grabbed the child by his shoulders and was verbally demeaning to the child. The child was never redirected to an appropriate behavior. *1. "Physical punishment, striking a child, roughly handling or shaking a child...." Evidence: Through multiple staff interviews it was determined that Staff A roughly handled a child. The child was pouring milk into the sink in the classroom, from a height about eye level or higher. Staff A yelled at the child to stop from across the room. The child did not stop. The staff person crossed the room, grabbed the child by the shoulders and forcibly moved the child from the sink area of the room, into Preschool I from Preschool II. Evidence: Through multiple staff interviews it was determined that Staff A roughly handled/shook a child on their cot by forcibly shaking the cot to wake the child up at the end of rest time. The cot was repeatedly lifted by Staff A's foot, while saying "Wake up, wake up!' |
Anonymous
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The child referenced above in the 9/30 18:27 posting was my son. While we had planned to stay at NSF BH another year, we've now left. I posted quite a bit about this back when it happened, so if anyone is interested you can go find my posts talking about what happened with a quick search.
When we left the center I sent our withdrawal letter not only to the school, but also to GSA, the Ballston Consortium, and the licensing folks, so all of those people would have a record of our side of the story. Should anyone else find yourselves in a similar position (with this or other centers) I reccommend you do the same - there were things that came up in my discussion with the licensing inspector where my story was different from what she'd been told by the (now)former center director. I'm honestly disappointed that the center is still going - the PP raises a good point re: good staff leaving, difficulties attracting quality new staff, and poor center morale. It's a real shame -there are some good teachers there, and there are a lot of families with no other good options. With this level of poor management and distrust, I don't see how they climb out of this and meet the needs of those families as well as they should. |
Anonymous
| bump |
Anonymous
|
This was sent out yesterday:
November 3, 2011 Dear Families: As you know, we have been working through a period of collaboration as we have been striving to return the center to excellence. After long and thoughtful consideration, and discussions with GSA and the Board of Directors of BCCCI, we have made the decision that it is in the best interest for us all to transition management of the center to a new provider. We will support that transition and make it as seamless as possible for children, families and staff. While the Arlington County Department of Human Services had indicated their intention this week not to renew our license, we want you to be aware that we believe their citations for record-keeping technicalities were both inaccurate and did not merit such a decision. While we will be appealing this decision, we felt it was not appropriate to let the appeal interfere with continuity of care for the children and your ability to have child care you can count on, especially with the holiday season and New Year approaching. By supporting a smooth transition of management, we hope to give everyone a future they can be secure in and can depend on. The BCCCI Board of Directors and the new provider will continue to keep you informed about plans for the transition, planned for early December. A meeting with parents has been scheduled for Friday at 4:00 pm for the new provider to introduce their company, discuss the transition, and answer questions. The meeting will be in Room 110 of the NSF building. Our aim has always been to support the best plan and environment for children to grow and thrive. We are committed to ensuring a smooth transition that will continue to allow that to happen. It has been our privilege to serve families here, and we hope for the best success for the center well into the future. Sincerely, Deborah Koshansky Regional Manager |
Anonymous
| wow - thanks for posting this |
Anonymous
This must be the biggest fantasyland statement of the year. These Bright Horizons people simply could NOT DO THEIR JOBS. They had a former clueless director who drove the place downhill, and their “upper” management people only made a bad situation worse. They simply didn’t understand how to run a daycare/preschool. I like how Ms. Koshansky calls all this “record-keeping technicalities.” Gee, I didn’t know that abuse was record-keeping technicality (see earlier posts on DCUM). Or hiring a convicted felon as a daycare teacher, in violation of state law and every known element of morality. Or consistently failing to keep classrooms in safe ratios, even months and months after being told by Inspectors that this was critically important. The list could go on and on. To Bright Horizons, apparently, these things are “technicalities.” These people are lucky they're escaping without being sued. |
Anonymous
Great post, and ITA about the bolded part. |
Anonymous
| Any NSF CDC parents here? What are your thoughts about the new provider, Children's Creative Learning Center (CCLC)? |
Anonymous
| I am releived that a new provider is coming |