The Goddard School - Reviews?

Nikjones08

Since this is a franchise across the company - just curious if anyone had experience with them. I realize the experiences will vary as each center is run differently. My cousin and his wife send both of their kids there and they love it. They live about 40 miles from us on the other side of town so we would not be sending our lo to the same location. We have an interview today with one that's about 9 miles away from our home. I talked to someone on the phone and she told me the tuition is $1053/ month. The daycare we visited yesterday was $180/ week or $720 - $900 month (depending on if the month has 4 - 5 weeks).

I'll provide a report of our interview later:-)

Sprite2012

I can't speak for the care they provide for children, but I have worked with the company itself fairly extensively.  They redesigned their schools several years ago, and I worked for the architecture firm who got the contract.  I was an intern and worked closely with the lead architect designer.  I can tell you that they put a ton of thought and invested a lot of money into the design of their schools.  They ended up with a state-of-the-art design, with materials and concepts that far exceeded all safety, health, and educational standards at the time. 

 

AlyRally

We just started sending our two year old to one close to us and we love it. The teachers are great and really seem to care about my kid, and I never come to pick him up and find him watching a movie or bored by himself in a corner. They do a lot of fun sounding group activities and each day has kind of a "theme" -- for the new book they read, the yoga pose, the art project, etc. It's cute. AND they manage to get my kid to eat at least half his lunch AND take over a 2 hour nap every day! I know this because we get a cute little report emailed to us every day at 4pm. It's something I look forward to at work, and then we can talk about his day at dinner.

We'll send new baby Bean there too after my maternity leave is over in Feb. The baby room there is great and all the kids seem loved & entertained...not sitting in swings or crying in cribs.

BUT, like you said, it totally depends on the owner and the people they employ.

AlyRally

Oh, and ours was at least semi-flexible in pricing. The owner told us if price was the only thing keeping us away that she would try to work with us, and she did. She came down from the monthly tuition $150 (per kid), which definitely helped us keep it in budget.

They may not do that though if they're at capacity or aren't hurting for applications...

JEN1974

As you note, it really does vary by franchise owner, but both our kids attended one until about 8 months ago when I got a new job with Bright Horizons daycare on site.  We absolutely loved Goddard, but it was adding 30 minutes each way to our commute (that's how much we loved it),  Here's what we loved (and this is where it's going to vary by site).  Our franchise owners were active participants in teh running of the school.  They were a husband/wife team and one or both of them were always there.  They'd fill in in the classrooms and really had high expectations of their teachers and staff that worked there.  As a parent, I felt like I was part of a family--they knew all our names, would joke with us and their office was right behind a glass wall as you walked in, so they weren't hiding in an office barely visible!  The school also offered extra curriculars which were great for my 4 yo becasue it was one less thing we had to do on the weekends or at night during the week.  They had soccer come on site, there was dancing and karate just across the parking lot (all of these you paid extra for, but no more than you'd pay a private vendor anyway).  It is one of the higher priced places in the market, on par with Primrose or Bright Horizons and the curriculum was equally as good.  There was very little I didn't like other than the commute.  We've now used Primrose, Goddard and Bright Horizons as all our daycares and hands down, Goddard has been our favorite.

Alex17

We send our son there. Love it. 

 

They go above and beyond as far as education, fun and it seems that the teachers and all staff really care about the kids.