ROOTS ENRICHMENT CTR

I give R.O.O.T.S a D rating. The only reason I do not rate it an F is because we had a good experience with our daughters care givers. However, we had an awful experience with the owners. They run multiple businesses and they appear to be spread too thin. There is incredibly high turn over among the staff. In the first eight months we were at R.O.O.T.S. eight people quit. Six people have quit in the last two months. In the 13 months we were at R.O.O.T.S. there were almost no new supplies, books, or toys added to the rooms. There are virtually no supplies or fun play structures on the playground. When the we had high heat in July of 2011 the owner brought two fans into the infant room that looked like they came from a flea market in Calcutta. When I asked her to buy a new fan for the room she propped in up on a chair with the cord hanging down. At that point most of the infants in the room were capable of pulling the fan down on themselves. R.O.O.T.S. has some homemade high chairs in one rooms. I found my daughter standing in one of the chairs when I arrived at the end of the day. The chair did not have a crotch strap with buckles. The chairs in the room were not up to code. A new staff member who is a veteran early childhood educator told us that all of the kids in our daughters room were bored because there was so little to do. We left for a new center that doesn't cost much more than R.O.O.T.S. On our daughters third day at the school, I saw the director unpacking thousands of dollars worth of new toys. You will never see this at R.O.O.T.S. Take you money, but more importantly, take your child and go some place else. If you are serious about attending R.O.O.T.S. you should call D.H.H.S. to check the status of their license. They are currently under investigation for multiple safety violations.

We had numerous issues with ROOTS over the past year; we meet with management countless times in an effort to correct these issues. We frequently got promises from management that changes would be made, but we didn't see adequate results. Our issues with ROOTS included: failure to adhere to state approved caregiver to child ratios; extremely high staff turnover rates; lack of timely communication from management; unclean and old toys; unsafe facilities; poor and lack of adequate child supervision. The staff members who cared for our daughter at ROOTS were good, but the lack of leadership, support, and training compromised their ability to create a safe and consistent environment for the children in their care. The issue that prompted the immediate removal of our daughter from ROOTS was that she was found by a ROOTS parent alone on the sidewalk outside of the center. Our 17 month old daughter had left the play yard through an open gate and her caregiver did not notice. ROOTS is an unsafe and poorly run center. The center's poor management, high staff turnover rate, and blatant disregard for the safety of the children their care should result in them closing their doors permanently.