Morrison Center

"Our child has been going to this school for years now. And honestly, I'm not even sure how they even function there. The entire staff throughout the Morrison school system just does the bare minimum. If you call the school itself, you will never get a person to answer the phone. You could leave a message, but no one will return your call anyways. You could send an e-mail, but 70% of the time you will not get a reply. Don't bother getting to know anyone's names, as staff do not stay there long enough. If you send your child here, all I can say is make sure you have a Facebook account, because this is a Facebook school."

"Alot of staff turn over because of burnout and low pay compared to surrounding schools. For a program that needs and should be stable for the population that they serve it is very disorganized because their priorities are elsewhere. They are very money driven instead of making sure their home base is stable. They have lost ALOT of good staff that had been there for a very long time, all of these staff left in very SHORT amount of time this past year! The one good thing that they currently have there are the Therapist and because of this I would only send your child to their Outpatient program, i would not recommend sending a child to their day program until and IF they ever get back to what they used to be and also what their values used to be!"

"I remember going to this school and I loved it! I miss it, it's a great program and everyone should go here"

"I was worried when it came to my son going to preschool and leaving him there. He has a seizure disorder and developmental delay where he doesn't walk or talk yet. I was at ease when I took a tour and met some of the staff. They are all very friendly and caring. My son has his own staff member while he is there to care for his needs, this was such a relief as he needs 1:1 attention. He loves going there each day and I couldn't ask for a better facility for my son to go to. I highly recommend!"

"I went to pick up a then 4-year-old child from the preschool in Scarborough in Sept 2013, and I witnessed 2 staff members dragging the child through the hallways of the school by his arms. When we called for a meeting to discuss the incident, the staff admitted that the child had not been a threat to anyone. They did not know why he was crying but said that they dragged him off the playground and through the school because he wouldn't walk on his own to the exit. The staff did not apologize at all. They offered to implement accommodations which were supposed to have been implemented the entire month prior to the incident already. They offered to let me pick up the child from the playground, which I had already tried to do from the first day of school, but the teacher had told me that I was supposed to pick him up from the meeting point at the front of the building instead and had given me strange side glances which made it seem that caregivers were unwelcome in the class even just at drop off and pickup. (HMM!) The staff tried to blame the incident on the crying 4 year old, and they blamed his behavior in general on the fact that he had attended another childcare facility that was "too accommodating" for him. Let's review - Morrison Center is a place for people with disabilities who require one form of accommodation or another. AND the childcare facility he'd been to previously is a simply AMAZING center that even though was not meant to provide extensive special ed services had been providing him support above and beyond what was expected of their setting. They were providing him actual CARE and he had been making progress even in a mainstream setting, but we were told Morrison could do more for him... The child himself was thankfully capable of self-reporting that just before being dragged down the hall, he had been crying simply because he could not get his sand castle on the playground to look "perfect" for the classmate who he wanted to leave it for. I also heard him say exactly that several times to his teachers on the day of the incident, and they still said they did not know why he'd been crying. The child began having nightmares about preschool even though he otherwise barely ever remembered his dreams or woke in the night. He became angry, cynical, and withdrew. I will always be thankful that I witnessed the incident so that I could find him a much better placement. What about the incidents that are not witnessed? What about the kids who cannot communicate? What about the caregivers who believe the sugar-coated BS they told us about this being "better for the child in the long run?""