Growing Seeds North

Growing Seeds North is going through a very turbulent time and is struggling to function on a basic level. They just closed half of the school because of financial difficulties and issues of having enough staff. I check my email every morning now because they send an email warning seemingly every other day that they may not be able to watch your child that day due to short staffing. I've received 15 such emails in the past two months. And yes, there have been a couple surprise days where it's our turn to keep our child home and my wife or I have to take work off unexpectedly which you can imagine is extremely frustrating.

There is a teacher's union that has brought up some very serious issues that the owners have never addressed. They do not communicate with the teachers or parents about the claims that they have made, or make any plans to do anything about the issues. One such issue: in May children got out of the gate and were found playing on the sidewalks of NE Rosa Parks Way, which is a very busy street. They purportedly self-reported the incident and claimed they were almost done being investigated, and have let go of the teacher that they believe was at fault, but I can't help but think the lack of oversight I've noticed at this school is not to blame.

I could go on and on. I have learned from others that these issues have been happening with these owners for a long time. Yes, Portland and Oregon in general have been deemed by some to be a "childcare desert" so I understand some of the issues with staffing. But this school has too many issues for me to list here that make it impossible for me to believe that they are just victims of this issue.

That's not to say there haven't been some nice periods or moments at this school. There are some great teachers here, and occasionally they have fun events with parents and kids. Sadly, after having been there a year we will be taking our child out of this school as I have little confidence in its basic functioning.