Description: Sonshine Kids Childcare Center is a Licensed Center - Child Care Program in ABILENE TX, with a maximum capacity of 62 children. This child care center helps with children in the age range of Infant, Toddler, Pre-Kindergarten, School. The provider also participates in a subsidized child care program.
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| Inspections | Assessments | Self Reported Incidents | Reports |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
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STAY AWAY!! Extreme nepotism, owner terminated our care. Two young men (one is the owners son) employed who work together, and with no cameras or any guarantee they won’t be alone with your children. Nobody checks ID’s at the front door!
It pains me to write this as I grew to love a select few at Sonshine, however that’s not as important as giving prospective parents, AND most importantly current parents this warning. This review covers very serious topics around child sexual assault prevention measures, nepotism, and security concerns. If you have kids here, or are thinking about applying I implore you to read all the way through as I will try my best to summarize each topic.
Concern 1 - Security - Sonshine, among other care givers in Abilene have experienced some hard struggles to keep employees for the past year. Because of this they have had A LOT of new faces come in and out of the door. However frustrating, that wasn’t the main concern as I understood this was mostly out of their control. The concern was that on many, MANY occasions I would come to pick up my children, would be greeted by a new face, and all I would simply have to do is say my childs name. Once said, this stranger who would almost always never introduce themselves would then go grab my children without checking my ID. So to be clear, they have no door FOBs, keypads for parents to use, or really any security system to keep your children safe except for the trust of new faces who generally during aftercare pickup are young adult employees. Because at the end of the day all their more tenured and experienced teachers are already gone. Let me be very clear, this is STILL happening. I reported this twice, and absolutely regret not reporting more. The feedback I did receive when reporting this was that other teachers who do “know me” must have seen me at the door, and told the new employee whose parent I was. (I have this in writing) Ah yes, a transaction neither the leadership nor I, the parent could confirm was actually happening. This was their best guess, and “they would make sure to reiterate the importance of checking ID’s.” Guys simply put, someone could absolutely go to the door, say your child’s name, and walk out with your child. I’ll speak on this in a moment, but in addition only one of their two locations currently have cameras. The owner (Ashley) was nice enough to choose defense over comfort, and told me that she’s not legally required to have cameras. Now on to the other two issues.
Concern 2&3 - Sexual Assault Prevention Measures & Nepotism – First I must preface the Owner of Sonshine Daycare’s name is Ashley. Ashley employs her mother, sister, and son. There may be more but that’s all I knew about in my time there. All things considered employing family doesn’t really matter, unless it becomes nepotism. In this case in my opinion, I am CERTAIN that’s what occurred. So, lets jump in. After experiencing major security issues seen in concern 1, I started to feel a little uneasy as there wasn’t this feeling that someone was running a “tight ship” anymore. We lost a lot of great teachers, and things started to feel really low caliber as it related to new faces in the daycare. Then we get an intro email for once introducing Ashley’s son who will now be working at my daughter’s location. As someone who unfortunately has several immediate family members who suffered sexual assault as children I was immediately on high alert. It’s hard to ignore stats where 1 out of 3 girls, and 1 out of 6 boys will experience sexual assault before the age of 18. In addition, several stats I found on credible sites validate information I already knew. 80-90% of these cases were all male. So instead of jumping to conclusions I first educated myself on what grooming looks like, and kept an eye out. Eventually I got to a place with some prayer where I was somewhat okay. Never fully okay, just adapting and watching. Then comes boy #2, at the SAME location working at the SAME time as Ashley’s son. No introduction to who he is, and even better. My first day seeing him, he gave me my daughter without IDing me at the door. This was the final straw.
I go to the office the next day, and I report my concerns. I spoke with Paige the Director. She understood, and said she would immediately talk to staff again on ID’s (I spoke to her about this before) and they would send and intro on the new boy. During this conversation it was also said that, “These boys doesn’t really want to be at a daycare, its just easy for their schedule because they are in college”. Such comforting words, so they don’t actually want to be with my kids this is just easy for them. Nice. As to the boy, I found out he was a family friend of the Owner Ashley, and her son. So please take a moment and think about the position the owner is putting parents, AND employees in. Do you honestly think that if someone did have a problem they would actually report it without the fear of either their children receiving poor care, or the worst case scenario that happened to me and my family where she terminates your care? Yeah, goodluck with the idea there’s actually open communication at Sonshine. I’ve learned very quickly the owner Ashley is not only unprofessional, but (this is important) she will choose her family over the care of your children. On that note, let’s move onto the topic of nepotism.
I see a message from Ashley in the kids app we use for daycare after I reported these concerns to Paige, and during this time I’m praying on what to do about my daughter being in the care of two young men. Mind you, as I noted her unprofessionalism, she never ONCE asked to talk to me about this in person. It was a lot of sorry’s, and here is why I have two males employed explanations in the beginning. Same college reference, and “We do understand that it is somewhat unconventional for us to have male employees at the daycare. We also hope for our Sonshine families to be confident in our judgement of who we allow into the facility.” Family friend, and son seem pretty biased to me, not sure where good judgement is when you hired two young men who were not only convenient hires, but you openly said they only work for the ease of the job for their lives as college students, not once was it said because they have a passion for caring for children, or had ANY background in childcare. Yall come on.
In response I sent a long email to her work email outside of the daycare app. In summary I sent what I feel was a desperate mother conveying concerns about not only security issues, but that two young males working together in a facility with my daughter with NO cameras was absolutely alarming. The only “failsafe”, was another young female who is present with them. In the land of reality what parent can trust an early 20’s female to be the buffer between two early 20’s males that KNOW each other? I would assume that common sense would tell you that formula does not compute. Ashley’s response took the form of absolute defense. She starts the email off with unnecessary details about their relocation plans where all employees will be in the same location, and “Once we are ready, we do hope to make some adjustments to help everything run smoothly.” So essentially all our security measures aren’t fully in place to where I’d like, but when we all relocate, we hope to fulfill expectations. She then goes on to say “All our staff members at the school have said that (male employee name) is the best aftercare teacher that we have had thus far.” What credentials! He has no experience, and is only here because it fits his college schedule, but all the employees love him. (She also conveniently leaves out her son, this is the family friend.) The same employees that get paid, and report to the owner/mother/family friend of these male employees just love him! Sorry I’ll stop my sarcasm now. Last important quote, a female will always be present “unless there is an unavoidable extenuating circumstance.” To those who think this isn’t a valid concern, remember that you are gambling your child’s innocence. Ashley could have easily moved her son, and the other male family friend to the location with cameras. Had better safety measures, literally ANYTHING at this point, but you know her resolution to me via email? Minimize my child’s time within her care, and put her in part time. Move my daughter out before the men arrive. In addition to not putting up any resolution whatsoever other than promises for the new location, and “we will remind employees about checking ID’s” she offered NOTHING. Didn’t budge when it came to her son, or the other male family friend. Literally offered nothing to soothe me as a concerned mother. Let me also note, I NEVER said anything remotely close to accusing ANYONE of ANYTHING. I merely pointing out concerns, and said that I was very worried. Last quote I’ll add from Ashley before she terminated our care.
“It is my job to protect both the students, and the staff members at Sonshine, and, unfortunately, your false negative assumptions about (male employee) are something that could severely damage his reputation for the rest of his life.” Hilariously I had issues with both the young men at the daycare without anything in place, and not once in my emails did I single either of them out, or insulate anything about them. I threw out facts about Sonshine’s inability to keep children safe, it was a collective concern given the horrible stats that support facts not discrimination of any kind. Ashley’s defensive, unprofessional, honestly disturbing response following termination of our care THE SAME DAY is why I’m trying to warn other parents. Should parents want to see the entire exchange, feel free to find me at Kayley Lynn Raley on facebook messenger. I’ll also be placing a review on their FB account as well so you can easily find me.
Guys merely speaking up about something that I feel was very important after almost 2 years of being an excellent parent, complaining about NOTHING, paying on time, taking my children out when they suffered employee strains, and still paying them for the full month caused me to be without child care. No notice. Ashley kicked a family out of care with absolutely no backup plan because she has extreme nepotism issues. Funny enough she said she talked to parents who disagree with me, but I have teachers who left that place who babysit my kids, and are not even close to surprised that she acted this way. To quote an anonymous ex-employee, “oh she babies the heck out of her son, and I’m not surprised she went all momma bear on you.” I’m a momma bear too, but I also don’t own a daycare with other children whose safety are my responsibility.
It’s my opinion that at this time Sonshine Daycare is a very scary, and horribly unsecure facility to bring your children to. Look somewhere else, have standards, use your voice.