Working at Kindercare — Reviews by Employees

Corporate is extremely greedy. They are not giving any employees raises this year. They did not give raises last year. I've been there two years and have never received a raise! How can they expect employees to stay with their company and not give them any raises, especially when their pay was already low! I know I'm looking for a new job, and if you have the misfortune for working for this monster you should too.

In my opinion this was not a good place to work. I worked at the company a little over 6 months before I quit. There were benefits like paid holidays, vacation and sick pay if you can make it to the one year mark (Congratulation if you make it!). They had a tuition re-imbursement program (never used it so don't know if it was very much). The office supported you most the time with the parents and they were also great about giving days off when you asked (but I think that balances out with them scheduling your work hours to fit them as they were always sending people home early when ever they possibly could) The pay was minimal. No one could honestly do this work for a living and afford more than to barely get by. You were never relieved from your daily shift till 5-10 min after the end of your shift, and you still had to take out the trash, pick up the toys, sweep the floor, and mop. The time sheets were always collected and entered before the end of Fridays shift so it only left you guessing what time they put in for you Friday night. I figure they didn't just assume I was going to leave 15 min late that day and put it in as such. I wish I had kept track of my paycheck time calculations a litter closer. I just expected to get paid what I wrote down but was informed by many other employees that was not the case several months into working there. Time was never given for lesson planning and collecting supplies (the closet wasn't far but you couldn't just leave your kids and go get it). They also didn’t provide enough lesson planning resources to adequately fill the day with appropriate lessons. You had to arrive 10 minutes early on your own time to get your sanitizer spray bottle and supplies for the day. And of course if a parent came while you were in the room you got stuck with a child early and no supplies for the day. My co-workers were competent and good teachers, overall I felt the center was clean and maintained. I liked working with the children, and was given an hour break during lunch break. (This was nice but benefited the company more than me since the student ratio to teacher doubles at nap time they just didn't need two teacher in all the rooms during nap.) They did not have a breakroom were you could get away from the children so I had to leave for lunch if I really wanted a break. Good luck getting a bathroom break. We didn't have an intercom system so unless you wanted to shout the fact you needed to go the bathroom from room to room until it reached the office you just held it. Just before I left the corporate office was pressuring the Center Director to keep labor hours low. This meant cutting hours drastically which meant even less to live on for the teachers. The assistant director was horribly over worked and was in a classroom as a teacher for at least a few hours everyday to keep the labor ratio down. This push to lower labor ratio also resulted in children being "bump" to other classrooms. Then we would have parents complaining and asking us not to move their child out of the room. I totally agreed with them of course, but we had to stay in ratio and that meant moving children. I would be mad too if my two year old had to spend the day with the toddlers. They were losing valuable learning opportunities and this was not an occasional occurrence. The 3 and 4 year olds spent the last hour of the day with children as old as 12 years old who were rowdy and much larger than them. The center often didn't follow the 24 hour fever/vomit rule. Children would return the next day when the teachers had sent them home the afternoon before with a fever, this lead to other student and the teachers getting sick. There were no replacements if a teacher called in sick they just moved children and teachers around. I feel they also encouraged the teachers to come in sick. I myself had throw up one morning (was not running a fever and did feel better after vomiting) but had not called in for the required two hour ahead of time rule so I came in not wanting to get wrote up, but informed them that I had vomited. (figured they would send me home) They asked me if I could "make it" (and I'm a push over and stayed) and they then sent someone else who was not sick home 20 minutes after I informed them I was ill because I worked two hours later then she did that day and they would be short a teacher that afternoon. They pressured the classrooms to be decorated and be clutter free but who has time to decorate when you’re by yourself all day with 8 two year olds. I didn't often stay late to do this because I have a family and of course I wouldn't be paid but I always felt like I was being judged because the "good employees" spent their own time on it. I also refused to buy my own supplies but the room did have the basics. Many teacher did spend there own money. Any issues they had were wrote as memos on the bathroom door or mirror instead of talking directly to who was doing the behavior. This only caused more talking about the issue and gossip spreading. Overall, I feel like a sucker for putting up with a lot other specific incidents, as well as, being under valued and underpaid. Their was nothing to motivate you and no goals to reach. I hate to say it because I loved working with the children and they need good teachers, but it was not a good experience for me at this company.

Before I accepted the position I read many poor reviews and thought I'd give it a shot anyway. I've been there a few months and realized that I might have made a mistake. Yes, the environment is ... crappy. It's just a whole bunch of girls and they bicker and can only TRY to get along all of the time. The director will be sooooo friendly to your face before you begin working there, make you feel like you are going to be treasured, which isn't necessary important to begin with but after hire will not necessarily disrespect you but show a completely different side... fake-ish. I don't really care much because 90% of jobs suck anyway. Umm.. what else, oh yea, they will guarantee 40 hrs and you will never have 40 hours!! Maybe the 1st few weeks...maybe... they just tell you to go home early, so, if you'd like full time, go elsewhere, especially around the holidays. The children are wonderful though, totally rewarding, I LOVE them. So all in all, if you focus on the children, which is what the job's all about anyway, and if you don't care if you don't get towork the hours posted on the schedule, and don't care about bickering and gossip, you should be fine.

I have worked with kindercare for several years now, and have observed the corporation becoming progressively worse. At my current center, I feel no motivation to go above and beyond since there is no opportunity for advancement, nor potential raises. I am constantly out of ratio, while told to keep certain children separated because of issues (i.e. biting, scratching). The assistant director is never there, and when she is there, she's constantly taking cigarette breaks while workers are stuck in the room for ten hour shifts without a break. Our intercoms do not work, so it is nearly impossible to receive a bathroom break, much less help when dealing with an injured/sick child. Our center if disgusting, yet we are not given anytime to clean the classrooms unless we stay later without pay. We are constantly short staff members, but no one has been hired to help out, and the management allows staff members take off whenever. The pay isn't nearly enough to justify the lack of respect and the stress that the workers go through on a daily basis.

My experience at Kindercare has been way to long and way to annoying.. The company doesn know what the left hand is doing from the right.. The center directors are always on a sunday morning stroll and believe that they are the reasons the center is awesome.. The DM is a total idiot and probably should just shoot herself in the foot with all the bad choices she has made. The company doesn care about the children or staff.. I wish parents could only see what goes on behind closed doors!!!

I work for this company and most of what I have read is true. KC only cares about the money. I am in management and they give me so much paper work to do I dont have time to really see how the center is doing. I would love to spend more time with the teachers, helping them to care for the children. They need training, an understanding of what needs to take place in the classroom. I end up working all day in front of the computer doing one form after another. I love the children and want them to have a safe and healthy place to stay, and I love talking with the parents and making them feel good about leaving their children at our center. Wish it could be different and better.

Wow... I thought I was crazy because I thought that only our center was like this...
First of all, I would just like to say that I was happy to have a job because our economy sucks right now, so don't get me wrong before reading this.
I worked for KinderCare for almost 2 years. Everything you read about is exactly true. There's a lot of favortism. The only way you get something is if you are in the "circle of friends" that has been created. This includes the center director, assistant director and 2 or 3 other teachers. If you are in this circle of friends, you can show up late, or not at all, call off every Monday, and go home because "you just don't feel like working". We called Corporate dozens of times because of everything that was going on. They didn't care. They must have told the CD what was said because all of the sudden, those of us who called were ignored and given dirty looks for WEEKS. Makes it very uncomfortable to work!
Our kitchen was DIRTY! When licensing or the health department would come in, everyone would scramble to make it look like we were following health codes.
The pay was horrible. I left a company that payed me extremely well to come work for KinderCare because I wanted the experience. I took a pay cut when I came here. I was told we were getting raises about 2 times ... but where are the raises?
Okay now let's talk about ratio. What a joke. Shifting kids took place every hour in the afternoon. There wasn't any proper staffing because we couldn't afford to give out the hours. I was frequently left over ratio. This made me very frusterated and tense.
Kids get sick, parents should understand that when coming to a daycare the children do get sick easily. However, the CD and AD wouldn't tell parents when a outbreak was happening. RSV went around in the baby rooms and about 5 babies were in the hospital but NOTHING was said about it.
When I finally left KC, I gave my 2 weeks notice and did everything properly with a letter of resignation... but I was treated like shit for my last 2 weeks. My center director and assistant director both acted like I wasn't even there. They didn't speak to me, they gave me nasty looks and comments under their breath. I cried a lot during my last 2 weeks simply because I did not want to go to work and deal with that.
Honestly, it was like being back in high school all over again.
I could sit here and go on and on and on about the drama, the health code violations and how greedy they are about money.
I loved my job when I first started here because I adore kids.... however, I quickly learned that they basically lie to you about how "great" it in to work there.
In a way, I am glad I got to see things from the inside... because guess what? Now I know that I will never send my kids to KinderCare. No... it will be an in home daycare for my kids! I have seen and experienced too much at KC to even THINK about sending my kids there.
Overall, I was happy to have a job to pay my bills.... but I am even happier now that I am away from the drama and the crap I dealt with on a daily basis. Beware if you just got hired for KinderCare. And parents, make sure the center is clean... I am sure there are great KinderCares out there! Just beware :)

love it !!!

I work in a center where the Director has favorites and people are promoted who definitely do not deserve it. An empolyee is consistently late 15 to 30 minutes everyday and was promoted to management because of her friendship with director. She is still always late but what can anyone do. The teachers are fine just gossipy but it is all women. Management is good except for director who swears and threatens the staff. All she cares about is kissing DM's butt. We teachers try hard but there is never any money for new things and our center is outdated. We are a mismatched building with lots of hand me downs from other centers. We did not receive raises last year and this year doesn't look too good. Most stress comes from corporate office who don't seem to give a crap about employees!

I've worked for Kindercare for almost 4 years now. I will not say that I love nor hate my job. It is a job, there are both negatives and positives to point out.

Negatives:

- Pay rates/raises. I honestly do not believe we get paid enough, especially now that the company is trying to cut corners to save money in "hard times." We got our cleaning company cut to 3 days a week instead of 5, so now we are expected to do our cleaning (not a huge deal, take out our trash, vacuum and mop the floors) 2 days a week. This is without a pay increase. How can a company give their employees more on their plate and not give them a raise?

- Hours. Yes, we go through tough times where hours get slashed, but my CD is knowledgeable of who has the benefits and makes sure you won't go under 30hrs.

- NAEYC. I hate NAEYC, and I hate working in a NAEYC accredited school. Their standards and expectations are beyond ridiculous, it's obvious these people who come up with this crap have never worked in a preschool classroom before!

- Disrepectful parents. I can't even count the number of times I have been stuck at work past closing due to parents who just don't care enough to pick their kids up on time. The best part is that I work in an upper class center, we don't have the lowlives who don't care about their kids. The worst part is that they show up 5, 10, 30 minutes past closing and still want to stand around and chat with you. No thanks, I would really love to eat my dinner sometime tonight! You know they all get to just get up and go when their shift ends, why can't we do the same?

- Snow closing policies. Is it really beneficial to open up the center when there is 2 feet of snow on the ground and you were expecting 2-3 kids tops to show up? I literally sat in my center with my CD and another teacher all morning waiting for the higher ups to tell us we could close - and they were all on a business trip in Las Vegas!!

Positives:

+ Coworkers. I absolutely love my coworkers (this includes all management in my center). I feel really bad for those people on here that aren't friendly with their fellow teachers. We are a tight knit group, always looking for an excuse to go out to dinner and enjoy each others company. We aren't a bunch of uneducated young immature people who don't know what they're doing - our families love us.

+ Growth. This is both a positive and a negative because the only time you can really grow in this company is when someone leaves and you can get the promotion.

+ Job Security. You won't get fired unless you suck at your job, period.

+ Benefits. Can't really complain because at least I have them!

Like I said, there are positives and negatives. I do not think my particular center is horrible, we are probably one of the nicest in our district, but I will say that KLC is a pretty crappy company to work for, their policies really make you want to scratch your head at times, but I stick around because I love my kids and my coworkers, and you can't really beat having nights and weekends off. ;)