Anonymous wrote:Bright Horizons Crystal City is a daycare disaster. Please do you and your family a favor and save your hard-earned money and go elsewhere....

[ ] No diversity. Almost all of the caregivers are African-American. They say they promote cultural diversity, but this isn't evident in their hiring practices.

[ ] Extremely expensive. This is one of the most expensive daycares in the DC/MD/VA area. Save your money and go elsewhere, like American Day School or St. Anthony's, where the caregivers actually care!

Yawn. Are you really blaming the African American caregivers? We have taken care of your children for hundreds of years. Sometimes it wasn't optional....let me guess you think you and the generations before you came out fine. Perhaps you would like to find other people who are here lawfully and want to wipe your kids bum for 10 or 12 dollars a hour. Is that a living wage to you?
Seems like you choose a McDonald's of daycare and are mad because you paid Wendy's prices.

Bright Horizons Crystal City is a daycare disaster. Please do you and your family a favor and save your hard-earned money and go elsewhere.

After doing our due diligence and interviewing BHCC (and being sold on what we thought would be a high-quality and safe facility for our child), we enrolled our 6-month-old. We were so outraged by the BHCC's operations (or lack thereof) that we pulled her out after one month. Here's why (although the first point should make your decision for you):

[ ] Lack of security. More often than not, there would be no one at the front desk. We would rarely see the receptionist sitting there. The director's office is right next to the entrance, but she was never around. You could type in your security code to get into the building, but someone could walk in right behind you. My husband and I saw this happen a handful of times and were appalled that a random person could enter the facility that easily.

[ ] Inattentive to infants. I remember leaving my daughter and as I dropped her off, there were always 4-6 other babies in bumbos or writhing on the ground crying. They were rarely if ever picked up, even though there were 2 caregivers at any one time. One time I saw a baby throw up on herself and I told one of the caregivers to clean her up since the baby was balling. The classroom manager, Ms. Hadja, didn't even look me in the eye and said she'd get to it. Other babies started to crawl over to the baby and got throw up on them as well. I took my daughter home with me that morning and ended up taking an unplanned vacation day.

Another time, my brother and I came in during the middle of the day, and we swear it sounded like a chicken farm with all the babies crying, left on the ground, and not being picked up. The caretakers are so busy changing diapers and walking around with their clipboards that they don't end up taking care of the infants!

[ ] No one alerted us as to why half the class was not present. One day we noticed that there were only a couple of infants in attendance. We thought a lot of folks may have been on vacation because even though we commented on the light classroom, the caregivers never said anything. Later on that day we get an emergency phone call saying our daughter was throwing up nonstop for the past two hours. TWO HOURS! We found out when we picked her up that half the class was out because they all caught a stomach virus and RSV. We should have received a phone call, e-mail, and text when the FIRST child started throwing up. We were outraged that no one told us the truth. Our daughter ended up using a nebulizer for the next three weeks and lost a lot of weight.

[ ] No good place for the infants to sleep. BHCC was terrible, terrible, terrible with naps. As much early childhood education as they claim to have, the teachers in the infant room did not have a basic understanding of how long infants and babies need to sleep (at least two naps a day to start out with, at least 45 minutes in a crib to be restorative). My 6 month old was getting *maybe* 30 minutes, 2 times a day, and when I voiced my concerns, they said, "well...if we put her down as much as you want, she's going to miss out on all the "activities" we have for the infants. Of course, if my infant wasn't getting enough sleep, all those inane activities aren't going to actually benefit her much. And by activities, I suspected it was—again—all the infants on the ground while the workers changed diapers and cleaned the room. The lights were always bright on the crib side of the room, unlike other daycare facilities that at least have some semblance of quietness and dark.

[ ] Awful director, Donna Montgomery. She was always rude and inaccessible and for some reason, never in the office, and never answered our e-mails. Also, anytime my substitute guardians would call the front desk, no one would ever pick up. This isn't good if there's an emergency.

[ ] No diversity. Almost all of the caregivers are African-American. They say they promote cultural diversity, but this isn't evident in their hiring practices.

[ ] Extremely expensive. This is one of the most expensive daycares in the DC/MD/VA area. Save your money and go elsewhere, like American Day School or St. Anthony's, where the caregivers actually care!

Anonymous wrote:Btw doesn't Mitt Romney own or have an ownership stake in Bright Horizions?

Why don't you raise this on the political forum? This really isn't the place for this discussion.

Btw doesn't Mitt Romney own or have an ownership stake in Bright Horizions?

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone had any experience or heard of any experiences with Bright Horizons in Crystal City?

A friend who has an infant at the BHCC told me that she noticed infants crying for long periods of time and not being attended to, which she found very disturbing. Does anyone else have any positive or negative reviews about the infant classrooms at BHCC?

That is more than disturbing. It is neglect and a form of cruelty. Your alternative is Sparkles- good luck with that crap show.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone had any experience or heard of any experiences with Bright Horizons in Crystal City?

A friend who has an infant at the BHCC told me that she noticed infants crying for long periods of time and not being attended to, which she found very disturbing. Does anyone else have any positive or negative reviews about the infant classrooms at BHCC?

Quite honestly, I've wanted to love BHCC since its groundbreaking around 2007/8. Afterall, it's conveniently located, boasts a modern location, appears bright and pleasant on the surface, seems to have its learning routines which indicates an educational plan based on a philosophy, and it's always great to see happy children paraded in front of windows. I have listened to colleagues and associates who have disagreed with elements of policies, procedures, and or the "fakeness" of BHCC staff members and administrators (the cook/nutritionist was always well-liked, it seemed). However, for lack of better placements and convenient commutes for their children, many continued to entrust their children to BHCC while actively searching for other learning centers. It sometimes boiled down to parents wanting or needing to reassure themselves of giving their children the best by paying very high prices. A few decided to focus on a few simple, happy observations and decided that ignorance was bliss and to deny, deny, deny that in their parent social connections that no valid concerns crossed their path. But as a new parent who has been to the circus (tour), I have to say that I can certainly see the merit in the complaints and the decisions to look the other way on certain things.
It IS very much a publicly-traded corporation which places responsibility to shareholders over responsibility to consumers of their goods/services (the children). Why would I make such a serious assertion? Make no mistake here, but whatever anyone can possibly attempt to well-argue on BHCC's behalf, ask yourself where the BHCC revenue is going and why the majority of recruited staff collectively take up a significantly small percentage of that revenue. For example, I found that in a classroom of 9 toddlers, the lead teacher and two associate teachers together made less than the revenue brought in by 3 of the 9 toddlers' tuition and fees. And while there are business expenses, the fact remains that BHCC could afford to ensure that safety was overriding -- no toys from China/no toys with PCBs and lead paint, water quality test results provided to parents, livestream cameras in classrooms for parents to see the education they are paying for, a guarantee of organic fruit and vegetables where skins are very porous, no milk served from hormone-injected cows, some sort of coherent policy on genetically-modified foods (if researchers don't know what it does to children's development, why experiment?), toys washed in peroxide rather than bleach, etc.

hate to burst your bubble, but you don't sound like daycare is for you.

moreover, i don't quite understand how you can offer a "review" of a daycare that your child has not attended, but rather that you "toured." any person is capable of touring a daycare....the OP and others who read this thread are seeking reviews of parents who actually have children in the center.

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone had any experience or heard of any experiences with Bright Horizons in Crystal City?

A friend who has an infant at the BHCC told me that she noticed infants crying for long periods of time and not being attended to, which she found very disturbing. Does anyone else have any positive or negative reviews about the infant classrooms at BHCC?

Quite honestly, I've wanted to love BHCC since its groundbreaking around 2007/8. Afterall, it's conveniently located, boasts a modern location, appears bright and pleasant on the surface, seems to have its learning routines which indicates an educational plan based on a philosophy, and it's always great to see happy children paraded in front of windows. I have listened to colleagues and associates who have disagreed with elements of policies, procedures, and or the "fakeness" of BHCC staff members and administrators (the cook/nutritionist was always well-liked, it seemed). However, for lack of better placements and convenient commutes for their children, many continued to entrust their children to BHCC while actively searching for other learning centers. It sometimes boiled down to parents wanting or needing to reassure themselves of giving their children the best by paying very high prices. A few decided to focus on a few simple, happy observations and decided that ignorance was bliss and to deny, deny, deny that in their parent social connections that no valid concerns crossed their path. But as a new parent who has been to the circus (tour), I have to say that I can certainly see the merit in the complaints and the decisions to look the other way on certain things.

It IS very much a publicly-traded corporation which places responsibility to shareholders over responsibility to consumers of their goods/services (the children). Why would I make such a serious assertion? Make no mistake here, but whatever anyone can possibly attempt to well-argue on BHCC's behalf, ask yourself where the BHCC revenue is going and why the majority of recruited staff collectively take up a significantly small percentage of that revenue. For example, I found that in a classroom of 9 toddlers, the lead teacher and two associate teachers together made less than the revenue brought in by 3 of the 9 toddlers' tuition and fees. And while there are business expenses, the fact remains that BHCC could afford to ensure that safety was overriding -- no toys from China/no toys with PCBs and lead paint, water quality test results provided to parents, livestream cameras in classrooms for parents to see the education they are paying for, a guarantee of organic fruit and vegetables where skins are very porous, no milk served from hormone-injected cows, some sort of coherent policy on genetically-modified foods (if researchers don't know what it does to children's development, why experiment?), toys washed in peroxide rather than bleach, etc.

Better than the alternative. Way better.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I toured the facility but I did not like it at all. I saw a boy humping a little girl and took me saying something to a teacher to get them to stop him! Needless to say, I was not impressed. And I didn't like the director at all either.

I'm sure the teachers appreciated informing them of what is generally considered normal kid behavior

humping is normal kid behavior?

it's not abnormal

Maybe the curiosity and attempting it once is not abnormal, but it is abnormal that the teacher didn't stop it. Hoping the normal kid behavior poster doesn't own a daycare...