Kiddie Academy of Elkridge

"My child was picked up with multiple bruises and a swollen face. I immediately asked the staff what had transpired and no one could provide an explanation, they weren’t even aware that she was injured. I was told an incident report would be completed the following business day. No incident report has been shared with me and the staff never contacted me to explain what happened for my child to sustain such bruises. I then contacted the school via email to unenroll my child and the overall tone was shockingly dismissive and still lacked an explanation of what transpired during their care. Not even an apology!! It seems negligence was at play, lack of accountability and a possible cover-up? I’m soo disappointed. Important to note that my child has come home with many unexplained bruises. In the beginning she had a competent teacher who was aware of the happenings in her class and notified me when another child bit my child. Now we don’t receive notifications about anything that transpired. She previously had a sippy cup that was provided to the daycare and the teacher presented it to me with MOLD on it and asked if I still wanted it because it had mold. Why would my child’s cup that’s in YOUR care have mold? Simple negligence. * Update* I agree, with another reviewer about the teacher only taking care of their children that were in the two year old class and the class not actually having a curriculum. It appears the teachers kid had KNOWN behavioral issues that went unresolved and that’s why they refrained from informing me. After my initial review another parent reached out to me to confirm that was the case. They were aware of the troublesome child and acknowledged that they’ve seen that child hurt other kids. Yet, the teacher tried to say my child was aggressive when it was clear via the video she was being chased around by another kid without intervention and eventually had to defend herself. My child had no previous reports of aggression prior to that incident but suddenly when my child shows up with unexplained bruises, it’s now my child’s fault. So this confirms the coverup because the teacher involved didn’t want to acknowledge that their child attacked my child, which is why it was never reported. Also the owners response to the reports were extremely disappointing, it showed she didn’t actually care about the happenings or my child, instead she just tried to absolve the school of blame, which is a dangerous game. She was barely ever onsite either. Had they actually just filled a report and informed me, this whole situation would have been avoided. I’ll mention that Ms. Octavia and Ms. Tori were awesome teachers, my daughter also liked Ms. Amma. Once the new teacher was hired things went downhill and fast, she was very unprofessional and we noticed on camera that she wasn’t actually watching the kids. Maybe only hers. My child is a new daycare and suddenly she’s not sick EVERY week. Which confirms my suspicions about sanitation. Also, there have been ZERO reports of aggression ( because my child is not aggressive) and my child is suddenly excited to go to school and sad to say goodbye at pickup. Something that never happened at Kiddie Academy of Elkridge."

"If I could, I will give it a -1 rating. This place is that bad. They only take care of staff’s kid. So you are basically paying money so that the staff’s kids are better taken care of. I believe it was a staff’s kid who had severe behavorial issues and this kid was scratching almost every kid in the 2 year old class and they still allowed the kid for several months. During the nap hours, they only care to put their own kids to sleep and do not care about other kids. The new staff are unprofessional. The old staff were great but they left. Probably there was some issue going on between the owner nd the teachers. Within a months almost all teachers left school. The class lacks complete structure. 2 year old class is completely useless and is free play almost all the time. Unless your employer is paying the tuition fees don’t send your kid here. All kids are forced to sleep during nap hours except for the staff’s kid. These staff kids then throw stuffs around during nap hours disturbing other kids wo are trying to sleep. When you ask them to help their kids to nap, they say the teachers are busy (by busy they mean busy attending their own kids or another staff’s kids). If you don’t believe, pay closer attention to your kid’s classroom via the camera access.The attention is 95% of the time always given to staff’s kids. The owner is hopeless. She only cares about money. Thats probably the reason almost all teachers went to Celebree school within a month. And then they were mixing up kids from different age groups because there were no teachers in Kiddie."

"My two kids have been going to Kiddie Academy of Elkridge for almost 2 months now and it's been a wonderful experience. The staff is extremely responsive, professional, and polite. One of my children has some special medical needs and I have been incredibly impressed with the staff's willingness to take special care of her as needed. My family is so glad we found this center and we are very pleased with the classrooms and staff. Thank you!"

"I am writing this post after my child spent the last two years at Kiddie Academy Elkridge (KAE), first starting when they were just a few months old. We recently left KAE due to a more flexible work schedule no longer requiring the services of any daycare (either in home or facility) and while not everything was always perfect, we would have continued sending our child to KAE without hesitation. We’ll start with the great; management and some of the teachers. The owner is responsive and the day-to-day manager (Ms. Ashley) understands the importance of communication, which has improved under her watch. As for the teachers, we feel blessed to have had our child under the care of some of the teachers; namely Ms. Gellener (infants) and Ms. Brandi (toddlers), as well as for their interactions with other stuff (Ms. Candi and Ms. Trina). We have enjoyed other teachers who have come and gone (Ms. Brittany), and while the revolving door has swung more frequently than we would have preferred, this seems pretty consistent in this industry despite best efforts and COVID has not helped one bit. Speaking of COVID, management gets an A+ for their response and how they handled the situation. We have friends who send their children to other local KA franchises, and KAE far exceeded the other locations in their response. Finally, you could always monitor your child from video feeds throughout the day, which was nice to have and certainly something you don’t get with in home daycare providers. The good: the interactions with the children and the learning. Plenty of art work joined our child when we picked them up at the end of the day and the teachers often read during circle time, as well as taught songs. It was fun to watch our child start making motions to “wheels on the bus” and recently sing Twinkle Twinkle. Most teachers were very good with communication and uploaded the app (Tadpoles) to ensure we knew our child’s food intake, diaper changes/bowel movements, nap times, etc. Our notes were also heeded and we were contacted/incident reports were completed when our child had an incident. It was very comforting to have the level of trust we had with some teachers and it was always great to watch our child smile when I would ask if they wanted to go see Ms. Gellener and Ms. Candi at drop off in the morning. The not so good: Some of the teachers. As I told the owner, no team is full of all stars, and KAE is no different. We really liked some of our child’s teachers, however some clearly went above and beyond while others appeared to make much less of an effort. To be fair, COVID has prevented in-depth interactions with the teachers since last year as parents are unable to go back to the classrooms at the moment, however watching video can typically show who is working hard and who is staring at their phone or remaining stagnant. As previously stated, communication is incredibly important and some teachers did not accurately update Tadpoles or take photos/video throughout the day, while others were on top of it. It never reached a level where we felt the need to directly address the matter, however a recent increase from our perspective may have eventually pushed us to do so. So why 5 out of 5 if we didn’t love every little thing or had some frustrations: because of the All Stars. Knowing my child was well cared for the vast majority of the time was incredibly valuable and provided a level of comfort I wasn’t sure I would find anywhere. If I had the financial ability and it were necessary, I would absolutely hire some of the teachers to watch my child full time. A big thank you to all of the teachers who helped our child to grow and develop and we wish everyone the best in the future."

"The staff at KA of Elkridge were great to our family - they really looked out for my kids, and both kids were eager and excited to see their teachers each morning. We always felt welcomed, and the center director did a great job of making sure she had an open door policy. They are very professional, and both of my kids gained a lot from their efforts. They offer fun summer programs and they make sure the kids get a good mix of play and teaching time each day. I only wish I could have brought them with me when we moved!"