FTC Daycare vs 1111 Pennsylvania for 18 month old
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Anonymous
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Hi all,
I just transitioned to DOJ at the Patrick Henry Building and I am thinking of moving my 18-month-old daughter from BH Georgetown to FTC or 1111 Pennsylvania BH. Does anyone have experience in the toddler room at either location? I have read a couple of threads regarding this but they weren't specific to toddlers and they weren't that recent. I toured FTC and wasn't in love but it's significantly cheaper than Gtown. On the other hand, I have heard from BH teachers that 1111 Pennsylvania is excellent and very well run. Has anyone had experiences at either? I would appreciate candid feedback. |
Anonymous
This is probably just as bad as second hand hearsay, but I both toured (when looking to move my kid) and placed my kid there for drop off a few times - looking at the toddler and preschool level. I was unimpressed. The toddler classroom I was shown on the tour was led by two teachers who were unenthusiastic to say the least, singing the circle song in monotone, clearly just going through the motions. I don't expect a cheerleader, but I do expect an attitude other than "I'm seriously bored and tired of this one year old thing." I was a bit disturbed that was the show the for the tour, if you know what I mean. The proved unable to engage my child during drop off days (who was understandably upset at a new environment, but in other situations/places not crying for hours). May not be worth very much. They don't have a playground, if you care, and I can't speak to the administrative side/running of the place. No info on FTC. |
Anonymous
Oh, for context, tour and drop off days both within the past year. |
Anonymous
| Thanks! I completely understand. I was very unimpressed with FTC. I felt like 1111 Pennsylvania was better but not necessarily awesome. Do you have any experience with Triangle Tots? |
Anonymous
| PP here - Triangle Tots is where we landed. It's better than 1111 from what I've seen (again, not as a full time kid, so maybe false comparison), but not without issues. A new director came in a year ago, prompting a slew of staff departures. It looked a bit like it was imploding for a moment there... The departures stabilized, but didn't stop (presumably what continued was normal turnover?), but there continued to be staffing problems - open positions for which hiring seemed to take forever or never happened, staff switches just as staffing in a room stabilized, so then kids were back to getting regular floaters with only one consistent staff. And it seems it became - permanently or temporarily - a far less pleasant place to work for some of the staff. I'm not really privy to that as a parent, so no idea whether it's improved. My overall sense is BHs at sites downtown may be really really struggling overall just from comments I've heard on staffing/other fires the regional director was putting out, etc. Triangle Tots does have it's own playground, which I felt was important, and big rooms. Staffing/sizing is different though - most BH's have 2:8 staffing until 2.5 and then go 2:16. TT goes 2:8 to 2-3:12 (I don't recall if its 2 or 3 teachers) around 2ish, and then 3:16 from 2.5ish to 3, and then 2:16 from 3 on. If that matters at all. They do parents nights out which is cool. I liked many, though not all, of the staff I encountered (but for a time would have left in a heartbeat if our lead teacher had left because it would have been chaos otherwise). There's a parent board and association. It's cheaper than other BH's. But has more days off than a non-fed center (not excessively so, just a PITA in the moment for the professional development days). Overall, it seems better than some of the other options. Maybe I'm just a grouch though - hopefully others will chime in, I'd hate for you to take us (or what we've experienced as a drop in or heard as rumor) as the only data point. I think people have different tolerances for different things. But there are a ton of daycares around here - a number of non-BH, which might be worth looking at as well. And it gets much easier to move (from a finding a spot perspective) as a kid gets older - 2.5+ seems the sweet spot - so you'd likely have options if whatever you chose wasn't working. We stayed despite, and I didn't see parents fleeing in droves either. We may have been spoiled by our first daycare (out of state) and the options in that area (which across the board seemed better than what I saw of the options in downtown at least). |
Anonymous
I was really unimpressed with FTC's management and communications. Like, they told us we had a spot, and then we never heard from them again. They didn't return phone calls, emails, nothing. We ended up at Commerce and are really happy there. One of the BHs on Pennsylvania has their own playground, but I'm not sure if it's 1111 Penn or not. |
Anonymous
PP, thanks so much for feedback! We actually decided to go with Triangle Tots. I am also on the list for US Kids and Tiny Findings. I am going to keep calling US Kids until they let me in  --at least so that we can get DOJ and sibling preference for the next one. No daycare is without its issues but I was actually impressed/relieved (probably more relieved than anything) with TT. It's convenient to my job and MUCH cheaper than BH Gtown, where my daughter is currently. Hope to see you in the halls at TT!
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