Froggie's Child Care, Inc. - Belle Chasse LA Licensed Center - III

During my tour of this facility I became concerned with the safety of the infants. When I first arrived no one is in the infant room or up front, someone could of easily stole a baby. Then when someone did come and take me into the infant room there were two babies under the age of 6 months who were in cribs being fed with their bottles propped up on pillows. A few days later I decided to look up state regulations for daycares and which states that bottles are never allowed to be propped up nor are babies supposed to be left unattended with bottles. When I informed the owner of what I saw who was not present at the time she replied with a text saying " ok I don't think bottles were propped up like you said but I think its best you go somewhere else too". One would think someone who owns a child care business would look into complaints about safety. She clearly does not care about children. Hopefully no infant chokes while eating due to her and her staffs negligence

First, I’ll start by saying my son had been attending Froggies for about 2 years, and he was put out due to an argument between the owner and myself. My sons teacher (Ms. Angel) has recently left due to problems with the owner, Dana, and everything went downhill from there. Dana has neither the patience nor desire to be watching kids all day, and it truly showed once she was forced to take over his class.

I was dropping my son off one morning, and I walked into a room full of children with no adult in sight. I stood around for about a minute and then asked “who’s watching y’all?” to which a boy responded with a shrug of the shoulders. I walked over to the half door that leads to another classroom and saw two girls (daycare workers) on the other side of the room. I said “excuse me” and received no response initially, so I spoke up a bit louder and asked “excuse me- who’s watching these kids?” One of the girls finally noticed me, walked over and said “I’m supposed to be ‘keeping an ear out’ for them” (with air quotations when she said “keeping an ear out”). I couldn’t believe she responded that way, basically admitting no one was actually watching the children in the other room. My exact words were “ok can you do more than keep an ear out? Maybe keep an eye out too? We pay over $100 a week for our children to be watched, right?” She nodded in agreement and I said ok y’all have a good day, and walked out.

Upon arriving home I noticed I had a missed call from Dana, which was followed by a text message “You need to call me.” When she answered the phone she was immediately combative, telling me I was disrespectful and had no right saying that to her employee. I argued that I had every right, as a consumer, to demand a standard for a service I’m paying for. Dana informed me she was out of the room with another student throwing up- but she somehow was also in the office watching the cameras and knows the girl was watching them. How can that be true when I was standing in the room and saw the true setting for myself? I told her there was no reason for her to be getting so defensive, its a big deal because that particular classroom is the ONLY one without a child lock on the door and constant surveillance is important. She finally became frustrated and told me to come pick up my child and never send him back.

I arrived at the school (and what do you know? She’s putting a child lock on the classroom door) and simply asked “Why are you punishing my child for a disagreement between adults?” Her response was she would call the cops if I didn’t leave immediately. I couldn’t believe that after 2 years she would discard my son so easily and ruin his daily routine because of a mistake made by HER staff. I told her this is not how you do business, to which she replied “it’s how I do business.” I walked away to the car with my son and my boyfriend stayed trying to talk some reason into her as well as collect my refund check for the days he wouldn’t be attending. The conversation ended with her calling him “retarded” for trying to reach a point of reason with her. NO ONE who is teaching children should be using that word, especially not in a deragotory way.

I’ll add in conclusion, I’ve reviewed the citations for this daycare on the LA Dept. of Education website and they have been cited MULTIPLE times for not providing adequate supervision to the children in their care. Do yourself and your children a favor by skipping over Froggie’s and sending them to Brighter Horizons instead. Ms. Melanie has the patience that only a mother can possess, not to mention would have never treated this situation the way Dana did. There’s also an actual curriculum in place, as opposed to Froggies where the kids either watch TV or play outside, and that’s it.

Froggies is a wonderful place to send my kids. For 7 years my children haven been going there and I have NEVER had any problems with the owner or the staff there. I would highly recommend it to anyone.

This daycare is horrible; and the owner, Dana Newsom, is a pretentious, self-obsessed human being. Every injury incident that my stepson sustained on site was poorly handled with only the highest level of unprofessionalism by Dana and her staff of high school students. A band of Silverback Gorillas are better equipped to watch a group of children than Dana and her ragtag group of indifferent, inattentive teenagers that make up Froggies staff. Every time my wife and I confronted Dana or her employees with a problem that we had, we were met with dishonesty, dismissal, ridicule and negligent behavior. Dana went so far as to steal from us and spread our personal business to her other clients. This business needs to be condemned and closed.