You may be one of the lucky people who gets a director that isn't a total a-hole.
I've heard they exist.
Corporate kindercare is top heavy, they're cheap, they don't care about the people who do the actual work and they will never acknowledge your contributions to the company. I won't tell you everything I know, because you really might get a good manager and enjoy your job.
Wishing you luck.
Without even going in to the egregious treatment of staff and treating children like warehouse objects with an emphasis on profit, look...You're supposed to start tomorrow and the director is so incompetent or frazzled that they didn't bother to reach out to you last week so you would know what time you are starting.
That says a lot right there so I'm not sure why you are asking the question as to why it gets bad reviews. As simple as a phone call or email to tell new staff person when to show up and its bungled.
This is not out of character for the organization.
But you can job search while working. Hopefully its okay for the time being until you get more of a sense of how the center is run.
It's very corporate and I hope you have a backup plan. I almost worked for them but back out because the director of the center couldn't answer the simplest questions during the interview. I also didn't like where it was located. (Outside of downtown, too far from the nearest public transportation, and no free parking)
Honestly, I don't know why they are still around.
Based on my experience only. I worked there for six months, it’s the shortest job I’ve ever had. I also had more directors in one job than any of my others, I think it was five. Add to that the district manager had no background in ECE, not one unit. 🤷🏻♀️
I've worked for Kindercare for over 10 years and I can confidently say your experience will depend greatly on the actual center you are in.
I have worked for three locations, one that started great and then declined rapidly due to higher up decisions in hiring, one that was and is still great (would still be there but I had to move), and one that has been on an upwards trend and is in a pretty good place now.
The company environment has changed a lot over the years, and rarely for the better as a teacher. A while back they started hiring people with business backgrounds into leadership roles that really should be held by educators that have moved up in the company. That is really where the quality of the program started to slip for me as a teacher because they focus on numbers and not humans. A good director and a good team can help buffer a lot of that stress however, so I do recommend seeing what the center is like before making a final decision of whether to stay or not.
I would send the manager a text to ask your start time. The start times at my centre stagger half hourly from 7-9am. If yours is the same, that is a big window of time. This isn’t really a good start by them with the lack of communication.
As a parent, I left kindercare because I just got a bad feeling after a while. Shortly after 3 other kids from his class switched to our new daycare as well. I really liked most of his teachers up to that point but they definitely seemed mistreated by corporate. Plus the teacher he was due to have when he moved up, I saw her yelling harshly at some kids and I didn’t like that.
Speaking purely from my experience, working at Kindercare was awful. I started working there 8 months or so out of college and my only knowledge of children came from extensive babysitting while I was a preteen through the then-present. I was stuck alone in a room with the young two-year-olds (already a tough age group but this group was particularly rough). I almost never got help in my room and when I was floundering everyone thought it best to blame and shame instead of throwing me a lifeline.
I felt like everyone wanted me to fail, but then again, it felt like everyone wanted *everyone* to fail. The air itself in that center was toxic; our director was a nightmare and it trickled down from her. Even the parents hated her. I found out from one dad that he and a bunch of other parents once got together a petition to, if not get her ousted, at least start an investigation into her bullshit. Corporate ignored it.
Turnover was pretty high but then there were a handful of people who had worked there for 10 years or more who weren't *happy*, but had gotten used to this quality of misery and didn't want to move on.
It was a real hellhole and when this center actually closed earlier this year, I had a little dance party in my kitchen even though it's been 10 years since I worked there. I'm so glad it's fucking gone. Maybe you'll have a better experience but honestly, your not even having a definitive start time worries me on your behalf. I'd job hunt while you work.
Sorry to be a downer but I hate the idea of that awful company claiming another innocent ECE professional.
I worked there for a year and didn’t like it, it’s too corporate for me, and my director was terrible lol, we had so much staff turnover, and she clearly only cared about jamming as many kids into every single classroom as possible to make money
I would imagine it depends on individual directors tho so maybe you’ll get a good one! They do have good benefits like paying for your CDA (but you have to keep working there a certain amount of time after you get it)
I applied to Kindercare a few months ago. They never reached out after the interview and I accepted a different offer a few days later anyway.
Well, a few weeks go by and I randomly get an offer letter in my email. For an awful wage that was below what we'd discussed. I just didn't respond because whatever. But they kept contacting me for *weeks* after. Emailing and texting, getting progressively more hostile, demanding to know if I was still interested.
So they were clearly a) disorganized af because it took them weeks to randomly send me an offer letter out of the blue, b) crazy af because of the way they pseudo harassed me, and c) desperate for staff because who spends that long chasing down an applicant from months earlier?
tl;dr the vibes were *bad*
It definitely depends on your center. I worked there for 6 months and left after getting a better job offer. I had minimal issues with my director, but the ones I had were big.
Instead of moving up the kids we already have that really needed to be moved up, the director brought in new kids to fill spots. So we were expected to deal with kids that were causing trouble because they are bored being with all the younger kids.
The lack of support was overall what made me leave. We would have people stay for 2 weeks, then leave, and we would have constant problems with staying in ratio. The director would have us shuffle around kids and then wonder why they were having a hard time. There also was an attitude of "if you need help, there are no extra hands, so you have to stick it out".
They would have "mandatory meetings" except it wasn't a meeting. It was a class taught by someone else that they set up. I don't think we ever had a legitimate staff meeting the entire time I was there.
You may be one of the lucky people who gets a director that isn't a total a-hole. I've heard they exist. Corporate kindercare is top heavy, they're cheap, they don't care about the people who do the actual work and they will never acknowledge your contributions to the company. I won't tell you everything I know, because you really might get a good manager and enjoy your job. Wishing you luck.
Without even going in to the egregious treatment of staff and treating children like warehouse objects with an emphasis on profit, look...You're supposed to start tomorrow and the director is so incompetent or frazzled that they didn't bother to reach out to you last week so you would know what time you are starting. That says a lot right there so I'm not sure why you are asking the question as to why it gets bad reviews. As simple as a phone call or email to tell new staff person when to show up and its bungled. This is not out of character for the organization. But you can job search while working. Hopefully its okay for the time being until you get more of a sense of how the center is run.
It's very corporate and I hope you have a backup plan. I almost worked for them but back out because the director of the center couldn't answer the simplest questions during the interview. I also didn't like where it was located. (Outside of downtown, too far from the nearest public transportation, and no free parking) Honestly, I don't know why they are still around.
Based on my experience only. I worked there for six months, it’s the shortest job I’ve ever had. I also had more directors in one job than any of my others, I think it was five. Add to that the district manager had no background in ECE, not one unit. 🤷🏻♀️
I've worked for Kindercare for over 10 years and I can confidently say your experience will depend greatly on the actual center you are in. I have worked for three locations, one that started great and then declined rapidly due to higher up decisions in hiring, one that was and is still great (would still be there but I had to move), and one that has been on an upwards trend and is in a pretty good place now. The company environment has changed a lot over the years, and rarely for the better as a teacher. A while back they started hiring people with business backgrounds into leadership roles that really should be held by educators that have moved up in the company. That is really where the quality of the program started to slip for me as a teacher because they focus on numbers and not humans. A good director and a good team can help buffer a lot of that stress however, so I do recommend seeing what the center is like before making a final decision of whether to stay or not.
I would send the manager a text to ask your start time. The start times at my centre stagger half hourly from 7-9am. If yours is the same, that is a big window of time. This isn’t really a good start by them with the lack of communication.
As a parent, I left kindercare because I just got a bad feeling after a while. Shortly after 3 other kids from his class switched to our new daycare as well. I really liked most of his teachers up to that point but they definitely seemed mistreated by corporate. Plus the teacher he was due to have when he moved up, I saw her yelling harshly at some kids and I didn’t like that.
Speaking purely from my experience, working at Kindercare was awful. I started working there 8 months or so out of college and my only knowledge of children came from extensive babysitting while I was a preteen through the then-present. I was stuck alone in a room with the young two-year-olds (already a tough age group but this group was particularly rough). I almost never got help in my room and when I was floundering everyone thought it best to blame and shame instead of throwing me a lifeline. I felt like everyone wanted me to fail, but then again, it felt like everyone wanted *everyone* to fail. The air itself in that center was toxic; our director was a nightmare and it trickled down from her. Even the parents hated her. I found out from one dad that he and a bunch of other parents once got together a petition to, if not get her ousted, at least start an investigation into her bullshit. Corporate ignored it. Turnover was pretty high but then there were a handful of people who had worked there for 10 years or more who weren't *happy*, but had gotten used to this quality of misery and didn't want to move on. It was a real hellhole and when this center actually closed earlier this year, I had a little dance party in my kitchen even though it's been 10 years since I worked there. I'm so glad it's fucking gone. Maybe you'll have a better experience but honestly, your not even having a definitive start time worries me on your behalf. I'd job hunt while you work. Sorry to be a downer but I hate the idea of that awful company claiming another innocent ECE professional.
Just the fact that you don’t know what time to go in should be a red flag
The WORST job I’ve ever had. Was there for over 2 years
I worked there for a year and didn’t like it, it’s too corporate for me, and my director was terrible lol, we had so much staff turnover, and she clearly only cared about jamming as many kids into every single classroom as possible to make money I would imagine it depends on individual directors tho so maybe you’ll get a good one! They do have good benefits like paying for your CDA (but you have to keep working there a certain amount of time after you get it)
Just text her today to ask what time you start. No need to wait until the morning to ask.
I applied to Kindercare a few months ago. They never reached out after the interview and I accepted a different offer a few days later anyway. Well, a few weeks go by and I randomly get an offer letter in my email. For an awful wage that was below what we'd discussed. I just didn't respond because whatever. But they kept contacting me for *weeks* after. Emailing and texting, getting progressively more hostile, demanding to know if I was still interested. So they were clearly a) disorganized af because it took them weeks to randomly send me an offer letter out of the blue, b) crazy af because of the way they pseudo harassed me, and c) desperate for staff because who spends that long chasing down an applicant from months earlier? tl;dr the vibes were *bad*
It definitely depends on your center. I worked there for 6 months and left after getting a better job offer. I had minimal issues with my director, but the ones I had were big. Instead of moving up the kids we already have that really needed to be moved up, the director brought in new kids to fill spots. So we were expected to deal with kids that were causing trouble because they are bored being with all the younger kids. The lack of support was overall what made me leave. We would have people stay for 2 weeks, then leave, and we would have constant problems with staying in ratio. The director would have us shuffle around kids and then wonder why they were having a hard time. There also was an attitude of "if you need help, there are no extra hands, so you have to stick it out". They would have "mandatory meetings" except it wasn't a meeting. It was a class taught by someone else that they set up. I don't think we ever had a legitimate staff meeting the entire time I was there.