Honeydew; On the Green

"While I am not a regular reviewer, I feel compelled to add some context to past reviews. Since many of the previous reviews were written, there is a new director of the program who is fantastic. The staff no longer has a high turnover, and communication is very clear. We are HUGE fans of Honeydew on the Greene! All of the teachers are lovely and our son, who began at 4 months, has the best time every day. His days are full of thoughtful activities and each day we receive pictures and details of everything happening. The other families are very sweet and we feel lucky to be a part of the community. Highly recommend this daycare for Fort Greene + Clinton Hill families!"

"Wonderful place with teachers who love the children and foster a nurturing environment. My second daughter is now there. It’s changed hands between my kids and it’s even better now."

"We are extremely disappointed with how Mrs Zuleika has handled our application to the school. She indicated that they had a spot for our daughter, sent us a contract to sign and asked for the deposit indicating she would be in touch with the rest of the documents. Then after we had sent the contract back she ignored our emails and phone calls. When we finally managed to get a hold of her, she told us the spot was no longer available because of some unforeseen circumstances. Having signed the contract we gave up our spot at another daycare so now we are left with nowhere to send our daughter. Save yourself the trouble and go somewhere else."

"We had a positive experience at BBL. It was a good fit for our child who attended from 4 months until almost 3 years old. The teachers are wonderful - very patient, energetic, creative and warm. Together with the other families, they created a loving community in which we watched our child grow and thrive. I'm grateful for our time there."

"Our child attended this daycare for a year, from the age of 3 months until 15 months old. We have generally been happy with the teachers, as they provided great care and education to our child, who enjoyed coming to daycare. The turnover of teachers is quite high; that did not seem to affect our child, but if changing teacher every 3-4 months is a problem, you should think about it. Our main issue is with the director, and with deliberately ambiguous policies that are written in a language that even a lawyer we spoke to had difficulties understanding. In particular, we paid a month of "pre-paid tuition" (this is the language used in the contract) that was never used for tuition. Due to us moving, we discussed the cancellation with the owner/director. We were asked to provide a 2 months notice, which is unusually long, as most daycares only ask for a 2 weeks notice. The wording in the contract lead us to believe that this "pre-paid tuition" would either be used towards the last month or tuition, or it would be given back to us, as we provided a 2 months cancellation notice. At no point in this process we were told that this full month of tuition would not be given back to us. Basically, we paid 13 months of tuition, and received 12 months of service. No explanation was given to us as to why we would have to pay an extra month of tuition even after providing a 2 months cancellation notice. Even the lawyer said that the wording in the contract is ambiguous. If you need a lawyer to interpret the contract of a daycare, perhaps you should be suspicious. Parents should not need a lawyer to understand the contract for a daycare. If the owner of the daycare wrote a contract that even a lawyer has a hard time interpreting, you should ask yourself what motives the owner may have."