BRIGHT HORIZONS

For infant care it was great. We were a bit gun shy about leaving our son there as a baby, but things went well overall during the early years there. Our daughter had a good time there,  but things changed about a year ago when a new director came in, which was just when our daughter was leaving.
Something happened with the senior staff a bit over a year ago. An asst. director left immediately, and it didn't seem to be a voluntary exit, and a secretary who was really much more than that left very soon thereafter. The person who was director was demoted to asst director and worked for the new woman who came in. When this happened there was a major flushing out of personnel, some voluntarily others, it would seem, not.
Under the new director the climate in the place changed, people were fearful of their jobs, it seemed that they were looking over their shoulders. The quality of the learning experience for the kids changed. With my daughter there was a much more concerted effort to do lessons, show work that was done by the kids, you could tell that there was learning going on in the place. That seemed to stop with the new director, there was little indication of anything being done with the kids, though they were safe and kept busy with whatever was available for them to do on site; bottom line, there was not the sense of things happening there that was the case before. Suddenly there seemed to be a big emphasis on cleaning over doing lessons with the kids, not that cleanliness ever seemed to be an issue before but that's where the energy seemed to be going with the staff. We watched good people, at least per our perception of them, go out the door, and while I appreciate that we would not be privy to the reasons for this it was disconcerting to see teachers who seemed to work well with the kids go.
There are good people at BH, but for kids beyond the age of 2 I would only reluctantly recommend it.
Administratively it needs to get it's act together. There was no means to pay electronically (unless you had your bank cut the check from the bank itself, and in the end that didn't save any time, and still required you to wait until the check cleared before it was off your books) or pay with anything but a check that you dropped in a box every month as you came in with your child. In my book that there isn't a means to do a direct bank transfer from a checking account to BH, or, wonders of wonders allowing for credit card payments, is beyond inexcusable for a business this size. That you have to be mindful of making your payment with a check as you come in the door, more often than not frazzled over dealing with a baby or a screaming child, just doesn't help and, again, in this day and age shouldn't be necessary.
It has terrific near prison grade security. The daycare sits on the Health and Human Services campus on Fisher Lane, which means that you have to go through the security gate with an electronic badge when you come in to get your child. Not a problem if you have a government CAAC card (in all fairness, this BH's mission is to support government workers), but otherwise you have to get a badge from HHS security and renew the badge EVERY year, no simple thing as you have to come in to have your picture and finger prints taken to get the badge, and then wait a few days and come back to get the badge. On one level you think, "Wow, what great security, that should make me feel comfortable about leaving my child here", but then how much security do you really need, and given what you have to go through for this is it worth it? I say no, but others may disagree.