ComplaintsforLittle Miracles Montessori School

• Initial Complaint

  08/17/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Customer Service Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  My daughter began attending Little Miracles since she was 3 months old as of Fall 2021 (now 2yo). Not only as a first time parent living hours away from familial support, but as the mother of a kid who is the only African-American child in her class, there were a lot of moments of misunderstandings and inflexibility on the schools behalf. There’s a lack of cultural empathy and 2-way communication from this school that lead me to relocate my daughter. I have been overly criticized for asking staff to care for my daughter in a way that is mindful of her image (ie. Padding excess sand out of her hair/clothes, rubbing sunscreen into her skin so that there is not a visible a white cast, removing excess snot/boogers from her face, etc.). Furthermore, I have also received ample scrutiny for dropping my daughter off moments prior to the established cut off time of 10:30 AM, under the assumption that my daughter is “sleeping in”, not labeling the top and bottom of food containers, etc. Additionally, when it was decided that my child would need to relocate schools following a conversation with the owner, Staff rendered all of my child’s belongings back to us prior to the conclusion of the allotted timeframe for a child’s last day per the parent handbook, which I believe exemplifies the biases present at this school. Despite attempts to find resolution with the owner, I have still been met with numerous obstacles, including the observation that this facility has removed their name from the ODJFS childcare website, which I believe, is an attempt to “minimize” the number of children they service that rely on government supports (which included my child). However, there is a slew of many other underlying contributors as to why I feel like this facility has given countless pushback towards me to the point where I am now no longer welcomed.

  Business response

  09/14/2023

  Please see attachment. Call me with any questions at 419-***-****

   

  ***** ********-******
  

  Business response

  09/15/2023

  [BBB Transcription via Attachment]

  I am the owner of Little Miracles Montessori school and have been in business for 27 years. We pride ourselves in providing the best services to the children and parents that we serve.  To do so, we have rules and regulations for the child’s care and to address parents’ expectations and to delineate for my employees my expectations for the care that we provide. Claimant acknowledged receipt of rules but she did not want to follow them which are some of the examples made by claimant in her statement. 
  
  I do agree that the claimant's daughter came to our school from the age of 3 months up to just recently. Her daughter attended for almost 2 years.  She had previously made slanderous accusations about her child’s teacher.  This was very disturbing to me and the teacher so I held a meeting with both ladies and we thought we addressed the issue.  Several months later claimant was asked to leave our facility because of an improper comment made to me which was defamatory. Her comment indicated that the trust was lost and the relationship had to end. 
  
  The claimant stated “staff rendered all of my child’s belongings to us prior to the conclusion of the allotted timeframe for a child’s last day per the handbook.”  This is not a true statement.  My teachers got the child’s belongings ready on the final day which was a Wednesday. This was the end of the two week period.  They were handed to Dad when he picked up but he requested to extend for more time as they did not have childcare.  I called him back that evening to give him the ok for Thursday.  So she came on Thursday and he already had her items in his possession.  I spoke with Dad on Thursday and he said they needed more time.  We were closed on Friday to get ready for Fall session starting on Monday so that was the last day we could help him.  We have a waiting list so I filled her spot.
  
  As far as her claim that we have changed our policy in regards to accepting ODJFS students, this is not a true statement as we have many qualifying families.  We are not in control of the ODJFS website and have not asked to be removed as a provider.
  
  For some background information, I did watch her daughter at my own personal home  which I have done only on a few occasions in the last 5 years. She also asked me to drive her child to a doctor's appointment giving me only five minutes’ notice to do so. She stated that her doctor would not see her if she was late. She was already at the doctor’s office and it would be “too much of a hassle to pick her child up from school and take her.” I have never been asked to do this for anyone else in 27 years, but I did it for her. Regarding her request to remove her daughter's images, we have reviewed our Facebook account and do not see any images of her, if for some reason someone does they can contact Facebook to seek removal. I cannot remove her photos from any composite. Of course, I cannot destroy any records of her daughter's attendance at my facility because that is against the law.
  
  Hopefully this will resolve her issues with our organization so that I do not need to retain my husband, who is an attorney, to pursue the allegations set forth in our response.
  

  Customer response

  09/25/2023

  
  Complaint: ********
  
  I am rejecting this response because:

  I will not be subject to legal ramifications, as I am exercising my right to express my experience with your daycare. In regards to what led up to the withdrawal of my daughter at your facility, per a phone call I had with you, the day after my daughter dismissed due to her fever, I was harassed with a bombardment of questions the following day in regards to why she was running a fever, which I could not answer at that time since she had not had any other physical symptoms (cough, running nose, loose stools, etc.) and made such clear. From my understanding your handbook states that, when dealing with an illness, children are dismissed from school if they are running a fever in combination with an additional symptom. My daughter was described to be "clingy" and running a midgrade fever of 101.5, which I believe was not a justified reason for dismissing my daughter, which is why we attempted to bring her the next day when her fever was managed. Your decision to withdraw my daughter from your facility, was purely unprofessional and out of spite. Considering my child’s records can not be removed, I would like to amend my original resolution and ask that we are not contacted in any fashion by you and should any photos arise that depict my daughter at your facility (including class photos), I would like them removed. Stay blessed. 

  Sincerely,
  
  ******* *******

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