Little Adorables Child Care Center - Lilburn GA Child Care Learning Center

I taught in this School for nearly three years, and they were three of the most HORRIBLE years of my adult life, and my career. I also never thought I would ever say anything, and I decided to bury this school because the memories of working here were too painful. Someone commented that she too never wanted to say anything publicly, but it would be a disservice to other parents, I also feel that if I don't say anything, it will be a disservice to other teachers. The emotional and verbal abuse that I endured here, only God has healed. I met Ibironke the director of the school when I came for my interview, funny enough, we hit it off really well, and honestly, I didn't have many job offers, so when I got this job, I was so happy. I felt like I could stay there for 5-7 years. I sincerely loved the students (they are mostly Hispanic). The parents used to make me tamales, and even though we had a language barrier, we connected because I took care of their precious babies for 8 hours. My greatest joy was watching the children grow to appreciate counting and reading. It was also my greatest joy when they would slowly start responding back to me in English. Things started to go wrong right off the bat. The previous Teacher that I took over her class warned me in all fairness. She told me she suffered a miscarriage while working there. She also warned me about Ibi and her sister Taiwo (the Assistant Director). How I wish I could go back in time and heed her advice; I would not have suffered as much as I did. There are many things I could write about this woman, her sister, and her school, but I will only keep it to these things: Micromanaging, Emotional abuse, Verbal abuse, Strife and competition between teachers, funds for classroom, and horrible memories.

Micromanaging: The micromanaging began almost as soon as I began. I was probably oblivious for two months, and then things got real. I remember reading the kids a night night book before they took their nap and Ibi stopped my class, walked to the front of the room, and publicly corrected me for pronouncing a word wrong. She said I was in America and she didn't want the kids to have my accent. Many times, she rebuked me in front of parents and the children. There was a day she took me to the playground to speak to me. I ended up in tears, and had to go back to teaching the kids, because Pre-K is still on a schedule. When I got back in, some of the kids hugged me and kept saying, what’s wrong, it’s okay. A four-year-old should never witness their teacher crying or in emotional distress, but that was usually often the case for me. They would instead console me. The students made things bearable for me. That bathroom in Pre-K 3 is filled with my tears. I cried a lot in that bathroom. No one will ever know how much I cried in that bathroom. Many other teachers like Ms. AXXXXXXXXX and many more cried in that bathroom, or the bathroom in Pre-K 2. As teachers, if we sat down during work hours, she would come tell us to get up, that we couldn’t seat. I had multiple back pain issues while working there (I was in my early thirties, so it was not my age) from bending, crouching, lifting etc. The only time I and my assistant teacher could seat was if we were doing a small group with them that required seating. She would constantly walk around the entire daycare center which kept us constantly on edge. Some days, I would come and notice that she had moved my entire class around, from the seating, to classroom décor etc.

Emotional Abuse: Things got so bad that she began to rebuke me for my personal appearance. She told me to start wearing earrings and put on a little makeup. My hair was long and natural, and She even told me to braid my hair, or wear wigs instead of leaving out my natural hair because it looked “unruly and wild.” This was coming from another Black woman to a black woman. I didn’t understand what my appearance had to do with my performance as a teacher. I followed the school dress code of wearing red, blue, over khaki pants, but she always nitpicked at my appearance. I and my assistant teacher always watched out for her car, back then she would roll up to the school maybe an hour before lunch was served, anytime she came, she came in with a spirit, a negative energy, an aura, everyone would be on edge, and be on their “best behavior,” as if we were not grown women that acquired an education. Out of the many things she did that made me feel less than or crazy, the one thing that shook me and made me want to pull my hair was Lunch time. She gave us round white plates with no dividers. During lunch time, she would come and check that we “separated” the children’s food. For example, they would have apple sauce, white rice, chicken fingers, and peas. We as teachers HAD to make sure that none of the food items ran into each other, if there was one green pea in the applesauce, it was an issue, but she only gave us small, white, disposable plates with no dividers. I felt so crazy, it was like the Egyptians asking the Children of Israel to build a pyramid without giving them the building materials and whipping them when the work was not done.

Verbal Abuse: By the ending of my first year, on the children’s graduation day at Lion’s Park, she gave us the certificates and told me to sign them, so I signed them with my signature. When I returned the certificates to her, she told me I was senseless and couldn’t think properly. I was in shock, but by that time, I was already conditioned to her and the way she spoke that it didn’t prompt me to quit…I cried. She tossed the papers back at me and told me to figure it out (Her husband was present in the room when she demeaned me). I took it to the teacher next door crying because I didn’t know what to do. God bless Ms. AGXXXX, she took the papers and told me to ignore her. That same day at the park, she told me to go drop a plate of food in her husband’s car…it was demeaning. I smiled, took pictures with the kids, but as I was pulling my car out of that dreaded school, the tears flowed of their own accord. During that season, I broke out a lot on my face because of the emotional stress I was going through. The happiest day of the week for me was always Friday at 4:30 P.M, because I got to leave that school, and I had two days off from the abuse. The most miserable day of the week for me was Monday mornings, I was back in hell again. There were times, I would cry as I drove to the school, my heart would pound as my car drew closer to the school. Lunch breaks were also my happiest points of the day. I would drive my car to the park, listen to music and breathe.

Strife and competition between teachers: I won’t speak too much on this because these are my fellow teachers, but the competition created a lot of strife between teachers. Go inside her school, and if you watch carefully, Pre-K 2 is cold and doesn’t speak to the teachers in Pre-K-1. It’s been many years since God got me out of that dreadful hole, so I’m not sure who is fighting who right now, but the teachers didn’t get along also, it made the working environment horrible and cold.

Funds for classroom: While I taught there, I spent $2,000 buying books and supplies like (toys, crayons, pencils, markers, table covers, lined paper for writing, journals for writing, printer (yes, I bought the printer too), ink, construction paper, games, classroom décor, board supplies etc.) for my class. I spent the most money on books. I have my Scholastic receipts to prove it. I also bought books from the Goodwill across from the Center. In the “technology” area, many of the headphones didn’t work, the books were so badly torn, games were broken, had no batteries etc. When I moved to my new school, I was shocked when I saw kids working on tablets, phones etc. In fact, before I left, she hired another lady to replace me, that lady left the first day she came because she complained about the classroom. She kept asking, “Isn’t this school lottery funded, what happened to all the money assigned to the school? Why does the school look like this?” I have taught for many years now, and I have never had to spend a dime on any other classroom like I did in Ibi’s school.

Horrible memories:
• The white rice they fed the kids that ALWAYS got stuck in that carpet. The vomit, we cleaned with sand, the spilled drinks, gummies and other foreign objects that are probably still imbedded in that carpet. We asked her to get a rug cleaning service to clean the rugs for us because we had many vomits in three weeks and we felt that even though we cleaned it with vomit sand, it wasn’t good enough…she never did anything. The teacher next to me brought her own rug washer for her own classroom, but I was not that dedicated to wash someone else’s rug.

• The rat that died in the kitchen over the weekend. The smell was so horrible, we had to endure that dead rat smell. She finally did something about it when parents started to complain about the smell when they picked up their kids.

• Her moving kids from the infant room and distributing them into all the three Pre-K rooms because a teacher didn’t show up in the infant room. Us being over the quota by 3, 4, 5 kids. Us having to take care of 2-3-year old’s that shouldn’t be in our class in the first place.

• Me seating on the floor in the school bus riding to field trips, sorry scratch, one field trip, the one they had in Berkmar Church during the fall. I didn’t even know that Children were supposed to go on multiple field trips until I left that school.

• Her cussing out a teacher to their face, and the teacher crying

• The deafening coldness of Taiwo the assistant director who never smiled one day. She only spoke to you when it was time to serve the kids.

• Her refusing to write me and Ms. AXX a letter of recommendation because we wanted to leave. She told me this verbatim, “You will NEVER work as a teacher in the state of Georgia because I will never write you one.” Jokes on her.

• Her cussing out Ms. AXX because she finally got the strength to leave her school

• Her not paying you/ mailing your check in the Summer (even though your contract says it) because she wants to make sure you won’t leave her during the Summer.

• The gossiping about the parents/student’s homelife or parent/student’s appearance once the parent has picked up their child.

• Her NEVER paying the staff overtime when parents come late to pick up their children. She charges a late fee when parents come late, but that money never shows up in the staff’s paycheck.

• I just spoke to a former staff and told her that I was posting this review, this are her words, “She is so wicked. That place is just horrible, the atmosphere, the energy, teachers were always fighting, I just didn’t like it and she always cut corners even with the food, there was no excellence at all. Thank God I’ve moved forward.”

• When a lead teacher got bitten by a bee, she asked her to keep on teaching. That teacher felt like her life was not worth it.

• Her crying and breaking down because one of her girlfriends got divorced. The entire day, everyone was on edge times a million.

• Us always tiptoeing around her countenance, or whatever drama she was facing that day, week, or year.

• Us washing cups, spoons etc. ALL the time. Some teachers didn’t even use soap. They would just rinse it out with water. That was pretty disgusting because the kids drank milk ALL the time. It wasn’t until I went to another school and saw that they were supposed to use disposable plates, cups, cutlery etc.

• Us giving the kids milk that had expired. She would only throw it out after it had expired 3-5 days after. If she bought it, they were drinking it.

In conclusion, I honestly felt sorry for the students. I believed that if they had lived in a better neighborhood, if their parents could afford something better, they wouldn’t have to learn in such conditions. I’ll never forget the good people I met there. Everyone was not bad. I’m still in contact with three teachers that worked there, I think we are still so close because we made it out of the ghetto. When Ms. Caxxxxx told me that her first day in Public school, she felt like Little Adorables was actually the hoodlum for teachers and students, I understood her, because I made it out with my mind intact, and my spirit not broken. Seven years after I left, a younger teacher friend of mine that just graduated from college told me she was applying to that school. I freaked out, needless to say, they offered her the job, but she denied it. Years later one of the new teachers that she hired called me in tears. One of the teachers that was there when I worked there gave her my number. She called me asking me to advise her on what to do with Ibi and Co., I did my best to support her and told her to bear it and start applying for jobs for the next school year. Needless to say, she quit. The turnover rate in that school is through the roof. When I was hired, she hired four other teachers with me, I was the only one remaining after 6 months. I truly hope this sheds more light on Little Adorables from a previous teacher’s perspective. I promise you, this is not a disgruntled former employee, but a teacher, mother, and friend. I wish her and the school all the best, and I pray they change things around.