Goddard School?

[naomi's mama]

Anyone have experience with a Goddard school (franchised preK)?

[luvsviola]

Each Goddard is individually owned. It completely depends on the owner.

My SIL worked at one. It was AWFUL!!! Extremely high turnover of staff, no washing machine on site so the employees had to take stuffies/blankets/everything home to wash themselves in their own machines, and her room was set up so that if kids were in the potty/changing area, she couldn't see the classroom. She did not have an assistant, so this meant kids were unsupervised very time someone said they wanted to potty (which, when they say that, you have to take them). The biggest turnoff for her was that each week had a "theme" but no materials were provided for that theme. So, for example, it might be farm week. Goddard expected her (on the weekends) to go to the library and check out farm books, and create/purchase all her own resources. The only art stuff provided to her were crayons and one piece of construction paper per child per day. Literally, the owner would count and give her exactly 9 (Or how many kids she had) pieces of paper.

Since they loop with the kids, the materials she created this year would not be appropriate for next year, and she spent hours creating stuff.

She stuck it out for about 8 months because she loved the kids in her room. Then, without warning, they transferred her from the young toddlers to the pre-K kids because they were a challenging group and she has good classroom management. At that point, she told them where to go.

Now she works at Primrose School. As she puts it "Everything that was bad about Goddard is fabulous about Primrose." She absolutely loves it there.

[jenbengtson]

The one here in my town is amazing. Expensive but amazing

[jenbengtson]

The one here in my town is amazing. Expensive but amazing

[CherryPie]

The one here is in the more upscale part of town and I have heard from a co-worker they are awesome. If I need to put my toddler into daycare if DH's schedule changes, I plan on definitely looking into them.

[hikergal73]

I had DD in one for a while. The staff was great and the owners were very nice but I don't think it was anything spectacular. At least, not for the price.

[steph410]

several years ago I took a tour at the Goddard School near us. It seemed nice enough and safe, etc. But I only needed my son to go there for 2 days a weeks for a few hours at a time and I think it was $400/ month. Very expensive, IMO.

ETA: I didn't send him there.

[MomToMyMonkeys]

I have had several people come to interview to work for me who have. One from Goddard and they had nothing nice to say. Ratios were advertised as being low, but as soon as the parents left after drop off they would take a teacher out of the room. I have also had lots of parents transfer to my school from there (and Primrose, Kids R Kids, etc) with very scary stories. Kids being left unattended, a broken arm, kid locked in a bathroom, one forgotten on the playground for 3 hours, etc.

My personal opinion is it all depends on the management and ratios. If they only care about money and not the children's education and development, then something is bound to go badly wrong. There is no way one person can effectively reach, supervise, educate and love 11 two year olds by themselves all day (that is our state ratio). My ratio for 2 year olds is 6:1.

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