Description: Primrose is an accredited private preschool that provides a premier educational child care experience. The Leader in Educational Child Care®, we partner with parents to help children build the right foundation for future learning and life. Our goal is to help children have fun while building Active Minds, Healthy Bodies and Happy Hearts®.
Where possible, ChildcareCenter provides inspection reports as a service to families. This information is deemed reliable, but is not guaranteed. We encourage families to contact the daycare provider directly with any questions or concerns, as the provider may have already addressed some or all issues. Reports can also be verified with your local daycare licensing office.
| Inspection Date | SHSI | Complaint Rated | Violations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2024-02-22 | No | Yes | Yes |
| 2023-12-14 | No | No | Yes |
| 2023-05-22 | No | Yes | No |
| 2023-04-26 | No | No | Yes |
| 2023-01-18 | No | No | Yes |
| 2022-08-18 | No | Yes | No |
| 2022-05-27 | No | No | No |
| 2021-12-28 | No | No | No |
| 2021-10-21 | No | Yes | No |
| 2021-05-17 | No | No | No |
| 2021-02-04 | No | No | No |
| 2020-11-09 | No | Yes | No |
| 2020-11-04 | No | No | Yes |
| 2020-06-08 | No | No | No |
| 2020-01-10 | No | No | No |
If you are a provider and you believe any information is incorrect, please contact us. We will research your concern and make corrections accordingly.
Write a review about Primrose School of Virginia Beach South. Let other families know what’s great, or what could be improved. Please read our brief review guidelines to make your review as helpful as possible.
Primrose School is an accredited private preschool that serves children from 6 weeks - Kindergarten en offers before/after school care to elementary schoolers.
I am the owner and would like to give my reaction on the review written by Ms. H.
Our school's highest priority is always the health, safety and well-being of all the children entrusted to our care. I recall this instance and regret that Ms. H. decided to dis-enroll her son. The Director had addressed her son's continuous and extreme biting in the past months and decided to send him home for breaking skin two weeks before dis-enrollment. Following this, Ms. H. requested a meeting with the owners, citing a communication issue with the Director. We addressed both issues in the conversation.
We highly respect the privacy of our parents and students and do not discuss any specific details regarding incidents on social media.
Our parents place an incredible amount of trust in us every day, and our goal is always to partner with parents to provide the best possible learning experience for the children in our care. We have an open-door policy and I encourage anyone reading this review to please come talk to me and visit our school to see firsthand how we keep the children safe, happy and learning in order to provide them with the right foundation for success in learning and life.
Rita Strijker, owner
I have waited to write this review until now because I really wanted to collect my thoughts and make sure that I was able to express myself clearly so that no other parents have to go through what I did at Primrose.
On 9/24/2014 I pulled my son out of Primrose at Virginia Beach South after having a meeting with the owners, Mr. and Mrs. Stryker, to express my concerns regarding the director, Mrs. Arenas, of the school and her inappropriate communication style, nasty attitude and lack of professionalism. When my mother and I arrived for the meeting with the owners they had a general demeanor of annoyance that this meeting was even going to be taking place and constantly reminded me that they only had 15 minutes. Then, when the meeting started, Mrs. Stryker’s first words to me were that she did not know why we were having this meeting and that it was not going to do any good since Mrs. Arenas was not present. That she was just going to have to tell her what I said. (I’m sorry but is that not her job? I read the handbook and followed the proper chain of command as it is stated in writing.) Mr. Stryker at one point interceded to tell me that when he was a CEO of a company if an employee from the bottom came to complain to him about one of their bosses that he would send them back down and tell them to talk to their boss. This left me overly confused as I am pretty sure I am not on their payroll and that I had already expressed to them not once, not twice but three times that I had tried to make things work with Mrs. Arenas, but it is very difficult to have a positive relationship with someone who once told me that “it did not seem like I cared about my son.” And who constantly made my son out to look like a horrible child who was tackling, biting, hitting, throwing, pulling, etc. And someone who calls children “perpetrators.”
Now, I am not saying that my son did not do those things, in fact he was sent home the week before for biting a child and breaking skin which is when Mrs. Arenas and I had another incident where she told me that she “had let this go on long enough”, but riddle me this if my son had been such a horrible child then why had they not called a meeting with me? And why did they allow my son to stay enrolled but let two other students dis-enroll because of him? Not once was I asked to have a meeting with the teachers, the director or the owners. At home, my son is an only child and he does not do the things that they say he did at school, likely because it is just him and I.
However, I called this meeting to discuss my concerns about the director but the owner kept trying to turn it into their meeting to discuss my son. I explained to them, that I would be happy to have a meeting about my son, but that since I only have 15 minutes that I wanted to discuss the director. It was very clear during this meeting that it was going nowhere fast. Mr. Stryker was clenching his hands so tight and shaking that I was a little afraid of him. He even mumbled “sure he does” under his breath, when I said that my son did not do these things at home. I have no reason in this world to lie. NONE. I want my son to be a good man who is kind and loving and if he has a problem then I want to help fix it.
I am happy to say that my son is now at Rainbow Station and has been for a little over a month. In that time he has not had one single incident report. In fact the director came to me and said that she was not sure that she had the right child because everything that I told her that Primrose said about him. The difference between Rainbow Station and Primrose is night and day. I love Rainbow Station and so does my son. He does not want to leave at the end of the day as opposed to at Primrose he was running to get out. He is also happy when I drop him off at school now, whereas when I dropped him at Primrose he was always very upset and clinging to his safety blanket.
When I started having problems with the director and that they seemed to be escalating, I had started to look at other schools. Every single director that I spoke with apologized to me for the way that Primrose is and they all said that that school gives other pre-schools a bad name. They told me of the countless stories like mine that they had heard from not only parents but former employees. Which leads me to another issue, Primrose is severely understaffed which I think is the root cause of why my son was having issues. Former employees (6 employees left a few weeks before I pulled my son out), have told me how at times there would be 1 teacher to 16 toddlers because one of the teachers would have to run out to grab something. Now, I do not know this for fact but I do know that at times when I dropped my son off that there were more than 8 kids and only one teacher, which is beyond the ratio allowed by law. Even if this is only for a few minutes here and there, it is impossible to be carefully mindful over 16 two year olds. I feel horrible for the teachers there.
I was beyond shocked at how the owners responded to me. From an outward glance they always seemed nice and kind, but I was very wrong about them. I thought meeting with them would help to make things better but I immediately pulled my son from the school as they are horrible people, worse than the director.
I know they will try to make excuses for why this post is on the internet and twist the story but anyone is welcome to contact me at any time day or night. Jherzog2533@gmail.com. There is far more to tell then what I was able to put down in words. I pray that no other parents have to go through what I did.