Irene Wortham Center

My Lorelei loves going here for pre-k! She loves all her teachers- especially Ms Megan and Ms Jill. They've been very sweet to us both inside and outside the class. I would put 5 stars, but we've had some communication problems with the administration. I'm not sure if it's because they recently switched directors or what. At orientation we were told that the latest we could pick her up was 3:15 before getting charged a late fee, so we've been picking her up at exactly 3. Now all the sudden I'm notified that 3 is the cut off time, and we've been picking her up late for all these months. Nothing was said to us before. We were also told at orientation that the cut off time for drop off is 10am, but today we arrived at 9am (we had breakfast at home), and we were told we couldn't drop her off. The drop off time for pre-k starts at 8:30, so that literally only leaves a 30 minute window for parents to get there. I just dont see how that makes any sense, because what if they get caught in traffic? Other than those issues we've had a wonderful experience with this place and will continue to recommend it.

"Early learning center" is a joke. They don't teach the children anything, most of them are very behind. They treat all the kids as if they're stupid because they have special needs or speak Spanish and don't try to teach them. Their communication is terrible and they promise things they don't deliver on. They're rude and don't train their employees at all.

All of my children went to the Early Learning Center when they were younger and it was such a great program. My grandson started going there about 8-10 months ago and the new director is horrible. She speaks to parents so disrespectful and has no sympathy at all. She has not once had a interaction with my grandson or even acknowledged him in passing at the center. She doesn’t allow you to take them to doctors or dentist appointments and then bring them in which is a burden on my daughter who is a single mother who has to work, so they just have to miss appointments. I can see bringing them in in the middle of the day but 15 minutes past cut off time with a doctors note is ridiculous. I hope they do something soon or they see she is not kid friendly and should be on a different line of work.

The director and her staff are horrible! We’ve had issues with this school since my daughter first started here. Her first year attending this school (age 1), she’d never been in child care before so obviously it was going to take some adjusting for her to get used to being around other children on a daily basis (she’s an only child), and getting used to a classroom routine. You would think working with kids that the teacher would know that but I was sadly mistaken. Her first teacher called a parent- teacher meeting and suggested that my daughter may need a 1 on 1 specialist because she wasn’t interacting with the other children and chose to play by herself and then proceeded to complain that my daughter wasn’t up to speed with the other children as far as her knowledge. I understand this facility works closely with disabled people but my daughter is far from disabled. Honestly it just confirms the stigma of white schools pushing behavioral issues on black children. Instead of taking the time to understand why the child is acting the way they are they’d rather convince the parent something is wrong with their child and throw a specialist in the mix so they don’t have to deal with the child directly or maybe they’re just looking for extra money to drag out of the parents? That was the first red flag but I decided to continue giving them a chance since this was my daughters first year of school and I knew it was a process she would have to become familiar with. They were always nit picking with us and picking and choosing when to enforce “Covid rules”. My daughter has asthma and they would make us get her Covid tested any time she’d have a cough. Keeping her out of school for multiple days at a time. We spent countless amount of times at the doctor for them to tell us NO SHE DOES NOT HAVE COVID, her cough is due to her asthma or a typical cold/allergies. They would close down classes/school for multiple days giving parents a day in advance notice because of “multiple Covid cases” throughout the school, leaving parents blindsided and unable to find last minute child care plans because of this. We’ve missed numerous days of work due to this inconvenience. This school has even made our families feel unwelcome and uncomfortable at pick ups and drop offs. At times not even allowing them to enter the building without any explanation as of why when they were following the schools policy of wearing a mask and having their temperature checked at the front of the building. They were so rude and unfriendly to us but I didn’t want to remove my daughter because she made so many friends at school and genuinely enjoyed being there. But this staff is lacking on the personable side and doesn’t take the time to understand and make the parents or the families of the students feel welcomed at all! I would never recommend this school to anyone. Yes they do a good job as far as providing the child with a great learning experience (the few times my daughter was actually in class) but they are lacking in sympathy and compassion for the parents. We were always in constant debate and battle with this staff. It’s draining and very unprofessional on their part. Think twice before you enroll your child here because you’ll be paying for them to spend majority of their time at home instead of actually at school.

Very hard to say a hole lot of good, a few staff are outstanding and really truly care for there people that live there but other than that NOPE!!!! Dirty not well cared for kinda like the people that live there, just sad cause it could be a remarkable place