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January 2024 by Amy Grochala
We LOVE Kiddie Academy! Cannot say enough good things about this school. I transitioned my son here from another daycare at 15 months and immediately was impressed with how welcoming and attentive the teachers and staff are. The entire school made the transition easier and my son adapted in only a few days. I felt they truly got to know him, listened and watched his reactions and responded accordingly. The teachers and students need time to get to know one another, just like any relationship our children develop. I felt they really got to know my son and quickly as they would provide me regular reports at pick up which was wonderful in those first couple weeks especially. The school is meticulous with their cleaning and are always washing the children's hands. We have been at the school for 7 months now and my son has not experienced any major illnesses. I attribute that to the constant hand washing. He comes home everyday with new words or actions he wants to show us. It's evident he is truly learning and retaining it. I love the camera system. Gives me so much comfort watching my son and seeing how happy he is throughout the day. The school goes above and beyond for holidays, water play, the meals, and making the children feel safe and well cared for. We are so happy with the school. I would highly recommend and remember to give the school some grace in the beginning as they get to know your child and your child them. Thank you Kiddie Academy!!
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November 2023 by Alli Magaletta
Exceeded our childcare expectations! The teacher treated our kids like their own and were very thoughtful!
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July 2023 by Laurie Gabriel
I am not having a positive experience disenrolling my child. The director was on maternity leave which I certainly understand, but it seems like noone was covering her when I reached out several times. We need care sooner and addition to not getting answers I read negative reviews on the fb parent forum. I had concerns because of this nautrally and the lack of communication. Now instead of working with us because they didnt answer, they are trying to charge us almost $2000 to disenroll. I would be very wary about signing up your child at this point. If they were willing to work with us on clearly what was their error, and lack of communication, I would not be writing this review. When you sign your child up for daycare communication is especially important and our family needed care sooner due to changing circumstances. We gave them ample notice to disenroll. In addition, it is their error that they did not communicate with us which they will not even consider. If they had someone answering fully during maternity leave I would feel different. What if a teacher goes on leave? Will their be proper support? It is just not good customer service or support.Update: i would accept that if you had answered while on leave, but you didnt and you arent accounting for that in your consideration which makes it completwly unfair to us.
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July 2023 by Laurie M.
I am not having a positive experience disenrolling my child. The director was on maternity leave which I certainly understand, but it seems like noone was covering her when I reached out several times. We need care sooner and addition to not getting answers I read negative reviews on the fb parent forum. I had concerns because of this nautrally and the lack of communication. Now instead of working with us because they didnt answer, they are trying to charge us almost $2000 to disenroll. I would be very wary about signing up your child at this point. If they were willing to work with us on clearly what was their error, and lack of communication, I would not be writing this review. When you sign your child up for daycare communication is especially important and our family needed care sooner due to changing circumstances. We gave them ample notice to disenroll. In addition, it is their error that they did not communicate with us which they will not even consider. If they had someone answering fully during maternity leave I would feel different. What if a teacher goes on leave? Will their be proper support? It is just not good customer service or support.Update: still not treating our situation individually.
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June 2023 by Heather Catizone
Our son has been at Kiddie Academy of Cedar Knolls since he was 4 months old. The staff does a wonderful job communicating with families and with providing updates about our son. The teachers always greet him every morning with a smile and positive energy which makes drop off a pleasant experience. The teachers also have taught him so much and really tailor their lessons to expose the kids to new information and experiences. Their kindness, compassion and their caring staff is very much appreciated. Thank you for everything that you do!
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June 2023 by Monica Schmidt
We are so in love with KA ofCedar Knolls! Every single teacher and admin working at this facility is one of a kind. They portray genuine kindness and love to all of the children on a daily basis. We are so lucky and thankful to have such an amazing team care for our two children. Thank you!!!
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June 2023 by Emily Frisch
My daughter LOVES her teachers and coming to school each day.
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April 2023 by Michael Kattakayam
I had a bad trust & transparency related experience with the folks in this location. Based on my experience until something goes wrong from the people in this location true behavior won't be presented. Luckily in my case the situation was with $.I really hope & wish that no one EVER have to go through similar experience and have to deal with this location folks on a child matter as/when it does go wrong.My son was dropped for few weeks/days in 2022 as a drop in and paid full registration & fee clearly documented via email and was aligned with the Lady Christina on the total $ will be paid during the short period prior to registration. On my son's Last day with this KA on they way out I dropped into her office to thank and asked if any money due to be paid and confirmed as none as we are not coming back and if we are coming back we will let you know and she said NONE. On Feb'23 SURPRISE something called Annual Enrollment fee got charged to my account. As I reached out to the Lady Christina she said she will review and get back. No response for few days and I follow up the another office lady says its part of the enrollment which can't refunded. I had some multiple follow up and emails to review and get back and had some long conversations with the other lady which now they claim as Yelling(which is incorrect as I was in the car and talking loud because of kids sound ,If they felt that way I have no problem apologizing) etc. Not once they call back or follow up to my multiple emails and said they will never return back since I have signed and agreement as part of '22 enrollment it seems and the fee they charged, because I didn't disenrolled my son though IT WAS DOEN ORALLY AND DIRECTLY WITH CHRISTINA IN HER OFFICE AS I WALKED OUT IN NOV'22.If they have the video recording from her office reviewed this could be validated.I didn't have bad experience while my son attended but approach/behavior and TONE of the people truly changed to day and night as I highlighted the $ taken away is truly a way of cheating though that money doesn't belong to them.Hence I believe it is my LAST experience with this KA. Probably a last one anyone else with these folks in any matter and wish them the best !
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December 2022 by chris stiteler
My child loves going to “school” here. The teachers and all the staff are amazing and obviously dedicated and truly love the kids and care for them accordingly. We are extremely happy about the service, including the food they prepare for snacks and lunch!
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December 2022 by SUPRIYA BANSAL
Amazing school. Everyone is very cooperative
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February 2022 by Sara B.
I've been sending my daughter to the Kiddie Academy for almost two months now, and it's been a positive experience so far. No one loves sending their kid to daycare, but it's part of life for working parents. At the end of the day it's a clean facility and the teachers are sweet and care for my daughter. They feed her, change her, give her naps and play with her. There's not really much more that you can ask for when it comes to daycare. Looking at other negative reviews I was a bit nervous, but I just don't think it's realistic to expect money back if your child is out sick. And it's also not realistic to expect that your child will be tended to every single minute. There are 9 or 10 kids in class and 3-4 teachers. So it's just not going to happen. My daughter is too young for it now, but lunch is included in the price which is a a nice bonus. We didn't see that at too many other daycares that we toured. There is also a pretty legit outdoor play area which will be great in summer. The space is super clean and new, it's only been open for a year or so and it shows. The teachers send a few photo updates throughout the day and I always look forward to it. At the end of the day they email a daily report with info on naps, feedings and diapers. Teachers wear masks and everyone is temperature checked before entering the building.Daycare will never be the same as having my babe at home with me, but here she is well-cared for in a clean facility and that is really all I can ask for.
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December 2021 by Alicia Fung
My family made the right choice by selecting Kiddie Academy Cedar Knolls for our daughter. She’s never been so excited to go to daycare. Drop off at the prior daycare used to be difficult because she would cry and not want to go. Now instead of tears, she’s smiling and waving goodbye to us at drop off. We can tell she’s learning and truly enjoying her experience at this Kiddie Academy. I recommend this place 100%
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December 2021 by Desirae Stallworth-Urrutia
Love this place
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December 2021 by Sean M.
Kiddie Academy, More Like Corporate Academy.First things first, I'm not a big negative review guy. I generally don't feel it's my place to trash a business by expressing my opinions on yelp (the whole karma thing, ya know?), but I tried to schedule a call with the owners a number of times and they simply will not get on the phone with their clients, clients that pay a hefty rate for their business to take care of our CHILDREN.Now, that being said, we're currently in a pandemic and that's been hard enough on everyone. We picked Kiddie Academy for our daughter (19 months now) primarily because they had a new facility, they tout enhanced wellness and disinfection guidelines, and they seemed to take the pandemic seriously when we visited. From a pure experience for our daughter standpoint, it was fine. It doesn't feel like the place radiates with any love, but she enjoyed playing with the kids in her class, the teachers seemed ok (no one really had a "we're excited to be here taking care of your kids attitude" but I guess that's ok too), and every day she got a nap and they reported what food she ate. Great.After a few months, we decided to pull out daughter out because she was getting sick almost every other time she was there, and that lead to my son getting sick and ejected from public school (which is a whole other fun ball of wax with covid protocols). Our daughter was enrolled for two days a week, and if you get sick on Tuesday, you miss Thursday, and the cycle goes around and around. We get it - it's part of day care. That said, we were surprised that they don't require covid tests to get back in, you just need to be fever free for 24 hours with no medication. Ok, not super comfortable with that, but fine.Here's the rub. When we notified the facility that we would be taking our daughter out (on Dec. 7th), following the contract that we signed, we were left holding the bag on a $2,000+ bill that only included 1 day of care. They bill you on the 25th of the month before, for the following month, and the deposit is non-refundable. The deposit is supposed to be applied to the last month of care, but since we're not sending our daughter back, and because we already paid for December, they keep it all; per their contract, it would appear a $700 refund is appropriate. The math here simply doesn't work out, nor does feel fair. Now, for those of you in business reading this, you're probably thinking, yeah, that's fair, they signed a contract, it was laid out. But if you're any good in business, you would also agree it might be worthwhile for the owners to simply respond to our request to get on a call so they could explain that themselves, and perhaps even find some reasonable middle ground - refund a portion of it just to be a good person, create good reputation for their business (that's based on referrals and reviews), and more generally add a little love and personality to their business that at the end of the day feels heartless and gray.
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October 2021 by Lindsey V.
We had a horrible experience with the Kiddie Academy in Cedar Knolls. Our daughter (5 months at the time) was only enrolled 2 days before we pulled her and had to scramble for an alternate child care provider.First and foremost, I do not believe the center engages with the babies enough at this stage. The first day, everytime we checked the cameras for a majority of the day she was just laying on her back in a boppy unless she was in her crib. We wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt, thinking maybe they needed some direction or they were just getting used to our daughter but it didn't feel right.The next day when I dropped her off I mentioned that we want her to get some tummy time in and the teacher said yes of course. We again checked the cameras and this time every time we checked our daughter was on her tummy. At 5 months we really only want her to do tummy time a few times a day. What was more concerning was the fact that she was on her tummy but no one was down on the floor with her.All these things I felt could be worked through but then I got to the center to pick her up and things escalated. When I got to the door and saw her on her tummy with no supervision and she was full on crying; we have a mellow baby so when she cries she is UPSET. There was a teacher standing over her talking to another teacher but not holding another baby or helping another baby just standing there while my daughter was crying.The teacher saw me, picked up my child, which is when I saw that the entire half of her face that was down was covered in spit up, no exaggeration she was covered. This teacher didn't even notice, the other teacher noticed and took her to clean her up. Meanwhile she is still crying. They bring me my daughter and the teacher proceeds to tell me that she has been spitting up a lot today, especially the breast milk.I was in shock, and left to calm down my child and just wanted to get out of there. I felt sick and horrified at what had just happened and how the teacher basically tried to blame the situation on a 5 month old.I called the director and we had a long talk, she said she would call me back which she did the following day. She said they were going to implement a new system where no babies are on the floor without anyone down there with them. We didn't send our daughter back, and I checked the cameras throughout the day and no changes were made.We made the choice to pull our child and asked for a refund since she was only at the center for 2 days and the center violated company policy by having babies on their tummies unsupervised. We spoke to the owner who had no empathy and was frankly rude. She let me know my child was only down there for a minute without someone down there (I do not believe this - she was down there much longer). I replied that it only takes a minute for a 5 month old to get seriously injured. She didn't seem to agree.I have to warn any parent who is thinking about sending their child here. Just don't do it. We thankfully found a much better daycarewhere our child does multiple things in 1 day outside of sitting in a boppy alone.