With a name like Tutortime one would expect to have trained professionals working within these facilities however that is not the case. Children have little stimulation from untrained staff whom are mostly children themselves. Further, there is always a new face working there.
The owner is completely out of touch with the lack of developmental stimulation, training and operates this franchise like a puppy mill.
My advice would be not to waste the money on an esthetically pleasing Tutortime rather invest in a true learning center.
You are right! I just gave my notice to end my employment at Tutor Time. I am a certified teacher with a 4 year degree and 18 credits toward my masters. I also have 13 years experience as a Pre-K teacher in a local prestigious preschool. Tutor time is an insane asylum and I would not choose them for day care or preschool if it were free. They say education is important but yet I was the only teacher with a degree. The supervisor of the area (above the director) was never an educator, she was a supervisor for Dunkin Donuts!. Their priorities are solely head counts and it shows. The supplies for the children are very limited, the lunches, breakfasts and snacks are meager and often time, not plentiful enough. If I see another bowl of corn flakes I'll die. The children have juice only 1 afternoon snack a week, the other days they drink water with their goldfish, or saltines. The saddest sight is a preschooler dipping his saltine in a cup of water to juice it up. Sadly, the children are not well prepared for kindergarten because the director does not check the schedule of the teacher before mandatory break periods. Many times I was either in the middle of circle time, story or art activity related to the theme of the day and some floater comes in to relieve me! I want to sit with them and direct the art activity or read the story I have chosen relating to the theme! I plan and put alot into my lessons, but the emphasis is NOT on education. The name tutor Time is a misnomer, it is DAYCARE, and not a very good one.
Yes. My niece and nephew go to Tutor Time in Patchogue New York and I am appauled at the things that happen there. First off they feed these kids the same thing every day. My nephew is 1 and they just throw his food on the table and all the little filthy hands are rabbing it. Second the place is always smelling. They dont watch the kids and are always on thier cell phones. What a joke. The director what a joke. some one stole my nieces gold earing right out her ears and oh yhea they found them in the vacuum. right how did they get out of her ears to begin with. Just a money making scheme. taking advantage of poor parents who have to go to work.
I think it must depend on which Tutor Time. I think they are all independently owned. My child attends one in Queens and I like it a lot - although to be honest I’m a first time mom so I don’t have a real frame of reference.
But I do know that so far I’ve felt comfortable leaving my child there and I’ve made a surprise visit more than once to the school and found him to be happy and healthy. His school posts the menu for the week as well as the curriculum for the week so that I can see what he’s eating and doing each day. I’ve also got a nice collection of things he’s “made” at school.
Also, I get a “report card” each day detailing his activities for the day. The teachers in his class know I am concerned about his language development and have been keeping me posted if he says anything and have been working with him in that regard. Granted, I call the school twice a day to check in, so maybe they are more attentive to my son. I ended up sending my son there based on the recommendation of another mom who loved it there. She was referred herself by a mom who takes her child to another Tutor Time in Queens.
The one thing that does concern me is the turnover rate. He lost two teachers when he was in “tinfants” and now he’s losing a teacher in toddlers. I really liked his teacher in toddlers.
I need to double check this but I think the director told me when we applied that the teachers in the older classes have to be real teachers by law.
I’ve even been chastised a few times by teachers for things like not having the proper shoes for the baby when he was 1st learning to walk (I immediately went out and bought the pair of shoes she told me to buy), for not giving him enough floor time at home when he was small, etc. My friend got into “trouble” from one of the teachers for walking into the infants room with her feet uncovered. Even though being scolded made me feel like the worst mom in the world, I feel like the teachers are very conscious of my son’s development. That's just my experience, thus far.
Tutortime is ridiculous i had both my kids there and every week was a new rule with the charges and you are right about teachers that have no degrees in childcare working there beacuse the one that took care of on of my children didnt even speak english! then the directors were changed in a matter of months at least three times i would never recommend this place and ph i forgot to mention when "the BiG BOSS" as they would all say when i went to pick up my kids they would all be literally quiet and like walking on eggshells to make it seem they were nice... word of advice find a daycare that has licensed professionals and they are not phony.
my complaint is the one in west haven ct
Yankee Girl you hit it right on the nose!
I just resigned from this Company and I am in the process of writing a letter to Learning Care Group who oversee Tutor Time (and maybe Morgan Stanley who own part of it too since June).
It is so very sad to see a childcare facility that only cares about how many warm bodies they can get through the welcoming decor because once you get past the facade, forget it.
I am a degreed teacher of over 20 years - I have taught everything from jr. high to pre-K and reading specialist and tutor. I am close to finishing my Masters Degree in Early Childhood. For all of my experience I got a whopping $10.63 per hour and no benefits. I was offered a position as a Kindergarten teacher and I was excited to take it...wanted to do something worthwhile and what I loved doing while my own children were in full-time school. Boy, was this a mistake!
When I was told it was a Kindergarten class that was about it. The Director had no idea what the curriculum was, couldn't find any books in the class so I myself had to travel to another Tutor Time and spend my own gas, time and money hunting the curriculum books down. The only positive was they did use a fantastic reading curriculum with Harcourt Brace and a great math curriculum "Math Their Way". But...it was developmentally inappropriate for the so-called Kindergartners. The children I ended up getting had just turned 4! They were marketing this class as 'Kindergarten' so that they could get more warm bodies and, hence, more money.
The parents were also charged $75 for supplies which they still never saw (and never knew about not getting). We are suppose to submit a supply list at the end of the month for the next month, relating to the curriculum. I never got my September supplies. I then requested simple things that were immediately needed - glue and writing utensils! It was completely unacceptable. Many, many times there was no paper to even copy anything off!
The aides they put in the classroom with me were appalling. None of them were equipped at working even with a small group of pre-K children. Some of my aides would yell at them from across the room as they sat and ate at a table staring at the children. It was so sad and so unacceptable.
The sad thing is that neither directors ever came in to visit or get involved or know what we were doing in the class; and we were doing so many wonderful things. They were only concerned with starting at a computer screen in the front lobby (who knows why), going out to lunch, curriculum meetings wherever, getting on conference calls with the big boss (the great and powerful Oz I called him) to talk about low numbers.
"What you see is definately not what you get" at Tutor Time. Please don't waste your time if you think this is any form of education for your child. It is not; it is glorified babysitting for DES children.
It seems that all of these locations are managed the same way. Because the complaints are very similar.
I agree with people saying not to waste anything on tutortime. My son attended tutortime since he was six weeks and now he has been there for 3 months and i am very displeased with them. They are not following my feeding instruction. one of staff ripped my son's bottle nipple with KNIFE! to feed the rice cereal when my son is not ready for solid. I was upset but i tried warn them nicely but as time goes by, they are irresponsible and have basic knowledge on babies. if they don't have any caring minds toward the babies, they should have at least some knowledge at a certain situation but they weren't. the places were unclean that i saw one crawling child picking up the cracker and ate it and staffs didn't care at all. Their attitudes were terrible. They didn't even clean up for child when the children gets dirty. I terminated the enrollement before it gets worse.
We have had our children in tutor time levittown for a while now. the oldest has been there since 1 yr old, and the youngest since 3 months old (now 1 & 4 yrs respectively). since then, mgmt has changed over and any complaints to them are heard on deaf ears.
our childs jacket was STOLEN by another parent during the middle of winter and they wouldn't do anything to rectify the situation. We even saw the other parents kid wearing the jacket one day and approached them, and was told that we cannot go around accusing them of it (the thieves were related to the director of the school)
that day, they just wrapped our child in a blanket to go home in. other situations have been sending the kids home because they feel that they are on the verge of getting sick, and they don't want to get other kids sick. when we take them to the doctor, the doctor looks at us as if we are crazy. the kids are healthy and there aren't any problems with them.
we were also told that our child couldn't move up to the next room (when originally promised last year) to the preschool room because they didn't feel she was ready, yet she was starting kindergarten in september. When we kept asking, the director said that it was too late to move them up and that we would have to wait until the beginning of May to move our child up. Mind you, may is nearly over, and our child is still not fully moved up yet!
some of the kids friends have had similar situations as well, whereas the former director quit, and the new (bad one) took over, and refused to administrate medicine for one of the children. Some of the teachers volunteered to get certified, but the new (bad one) director refused the teachers the certification because she didn't want the school to endure any of the liability.
The school has been good in some instances, whereas they are accomodating to the hours of operations, being open from 7am - 7pm, and there are some teachers there that are great, but the school really needs to replace the director and some of the bad teachers there before they sink that school.
My friend got hired at Tutor Time in Shelton CT. She has a BA in Child Education and a fantastic mother. I was going to bring my children there until she told me what goes on. Oh my goodness! First off coworkers told her some staff member have come in hung over. The child/teacher ratio IS out of ratio sometimes, they just lie over the intercom. The kids get swapped to different classrooms if they're misbehaving or if the teacher doesn't feel like "putting up" with that one. I heard they had a child constrained to a highchair for biting another child and left in it half the day while the other kids played. Your "daily reports" that the parents get are completely made up! they will say "oh johnny had a great day and enjoyed ___" oh no no no. They are lying to all the parents. They can not put anything negative down on the report so if your child is hitting, you will not know about it. They minimize all accidents at all costs. They let the kids "play" all day. There were no balls or toys on the playground, the kids just stood there, sitting in poop, biting, and hitting and not learning anything on their curriculum. The 8 step diaper change seems to be too many steps for the staff so they skip some, they only do it correctly if the state comes in. Same with crafts. She has seen teachers do the children's "crafts" during nap time to say the kids did them. Their idea of a "learning activity" was feeding the children cold cool whip! I was completely disgusted. They give the children their lunches only to have them stolen by the other children and they don't do anything because "they need to share" and they let the kids eat off the floor just so they can tell the parents they ate. During her "training" they tried to shove papers in her face while attending children. She said watching the children are her priority and that she'd like to sign the training papers after class and they terminated her when she complained about the children not getting proper attention. It was okay because she was going to quit anyways. The teachers before her never stayed for more than 2 weeks. I think it's really sad and I feel bad that the children are not getting a proper education. I checked it out myself, the staff was very rude to me, they make it look nice when you drop them off and when your pick them up but in between it's a nightmare. I did not enroll my children and I will remember the horror stories of this daycare.
Tutortime was disgusting everytime ive dealt with this co had issues. It was dirty kids were left on their own counselors eating the kids food. A kid crying was left alone do not bring your kids here. I know two teachers that should not be working there one whom has her own child live with parents and the other left me in a lurch when needed.
I work at a tutor time in AZ. Did not get my pay check for six whole weeks. I complained several times about the check. And then I only got $100 of it. I feel like I am being ripped off. And I have to count up my hours to make sure I'm getting paid in full. I am considering quitting due to the very poor management. And it's very dirty and unsanitary. I would NEVER SEND MY OWN KIDS THERE! The RATIOS ARE TOO BIG 1/15 for pre K! And 1/13 for preschool3 or 4 year old's! I don't recommend this place to anyone. My boss is a complete nut job. And doesn't know what she is doing. There is always new staff about every two weeks. Overall, don't send your kids there.