Chantilly Daycare- Goddard or BeanTree?

[Anonymous]

First time mom, doing the daycare center tours this week. We are out in Chantilly/Fairfax. So far we have been most impressed with Goddard and BeanTree. Anyone have any experiences (good or bad) to share about either that would help us make a choice? Likewise, if there are other centers in the area you would recommend, please let me know that as well.

Tiffany

[Anonymous]

My son is at Beantree and I like it a lot. Things I love: the 3:1 ratio (more like 2:1 these days as babies have moved out of his area), bringing nothing except a change of clothes and breastmilk/cereal, and the later pickup time. His caregivers really seem to love him and he seems to love being there. They do lots of little activities for the infants there (arts and crafts stuff). His teachers spend a lot of time with me in the morning and afternoon talking about his day and giving bits of advice here and there (we think he may be teething, you might want to bring in cereal, etc.). It's not cheap at all but I feel it's worth it. Their older infant and toddler programs really appealed to us as well, but I have no experience there.

Goddard seemed OK, but they also seemed a bit pricey for what they were offering (not much) and the early pickup and no part time option were not going to work for us.

[Anonymous]

My daughter goes to Goddard and loves it! She started out in the Infant Classroom and is now in the Preschool Classroom. There are not enough great things I can say about the school. All of the classrooms have two lead teachers...no assistants. The Infant Classroom ratio is also 3:1 with 4 lead qualified teachers. I love that fact that a lot of the teachers have been there for 2, 3, 4, even 7 years! It also says a lot to our family that Goddard has their NAEYC accreditation, I'm not sure that BeanTree does.

All in all, the fact that my daughter is excited to go to school in the morning makes me javascript:void(0);feel like they are doing a lot of things right!

[Anonymous]

Beantree has a full day K option - I know it does not seem like an issue now - but 4 years from now when you are trying to figure out what you are going to do for K since LCPS are only 1/2 day it might make a difference.

[Anonymous]

Highly recommend Goddard. Some differences that made us pick Goddard over bean tree:

1). Goddard is accredited and it shows in how our child has developed.
2). The majority of Goddard teachers have college degrees...I think this says a lot about the quality.
3). Goddard is more affordable.

[Anonymous]

You should also look into Westfields Imagination Learning Center (The oracle building) site. No violations -- and rave reviews from parents there. Also checked the social services site on Fairfax.gov. It gives you great insight into violations - some scary but it gives you another perspective on some of these schools.

[Anonymous]

We had first enrolled in Goddard just because it is naeyc approved. The directors were not that welcoming. We found the classrooms too small for the number of children in it. Also the teachers were very young and less experienced so then we enrolled to Beantree. We have been happy there as it has better teachers bigger classrooms, provides diapers food etc, more flexibility. If you have 2 kids then beantree is cheaper than goddard as they were offering 25 % off on the second child.

[Anonymous]

I ditto 15:21. We enrolled our son when he was 6 months last year at Goddard and were in the Infant room only for 2 months. The infant room was small and one thing that we found very disturbing was that they combined Infants with First steps before 9 am and after 5 pm. The first week into his enrollment he came home with a huge bleeding scratch on his forehead. They did not even bother calling me and I was the one who noticed it and asked about it. We put him in Beantree and have been much happier with the quality of care he receives. He is now 18 months old and is blossoming thanks in part to Beantree. The only downside is that is pricier than goddard but dollar for dollar you get much more at Beantree

[Anonymous]

12:35 again. The directors were very cold toward us. I expressed my concern about combining Infants and First Steps and the only piece of advise she gave us was to place our 6 month old son in a swing. It seemed like at Goddard all the teachers were too busy to take our son so we were left placing him on a pillow or on a swing. I never had such an issue with Beantree. In fact at Beantree I recall that there was usually more than one teacher that I could hand my son off to one any given dropoff day.

[Anonymous]

OP. Did you see the most recent violation at Goddard Chantilly about an infant getting fed the wrong breat milk and the caregiver trying to cover it up?

[Anonymous]

BeanTree learning!! They are amazing!