early childhood teacher

educator

child care center cook

éducateur de la petite enfance

cook

Willowbrae Academy

What is the best part of working at the company?
I worked at Willowbrae Academy and unfortunately my experience was extremely disappointing. The work environment felt very toxic and stressful. There was clear favoritism, poor communication, and a lack of genuine support for staff. Leadership often presented a sweet and professional face publicly, but internally the tone and treatment toward staff could be harsh and disrespectful.

Concerns raised by educators were not taken seriously, and speaking up often felt unsafe. Instead of teamwork, there was division and pressure. This made it very difficult to feel valued or motivated.

I was also uncomfortable with certain practices I personally observed, including staff giving coffee to children and sharing food in the infant room, which raised serious concerns for me about professionalism and safety standards.

Overall, my time there was one of the hardest work experiences I’ve had. I hope management takes staff concerns seriously in the future and works toward creating a healthier, more supportive environment for both educators and children.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Management is very toxic. You have to perform all duties, no one else will help you, and if you ask them to talk to ur partner, they will not take initiative to talk to your partner. They will just let you die because they dont care about mental health and they are scared of some educators there. 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Very toxic and if you care about yourself and your peace, id recommend to stay away from this workplace 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
You are handling everything, no one else not eveb your partner helps you because they believe in favouritism not in team work. and if you speak up, you get warnings in the meetings that they will fire you.

The facility itself is amazing! Brightly colored walls, large windows, cameras on site, etc. The issue lies with management. Management overlooks and turns a blind eye to issues amongst staff members and that leads to classrooms in conflict. The staff overturn alone will drive that point home. The children are constantly having to adjust to new staff and wondering where the old staff has gone. Plenty of parents have had concerns about other issues as well, but management makes themselves so unavailable to certain parents that it makes meetings next to impossible. There is an EXTREME lack of communication between Willowbrae and its families. If parent issues and concerns aren't a priority...then what is?? 

Another issue lies in the constant flip flopping regarding policies. Most centres make a policy and stick to it. Willowbrae will adjust the policies to whatever will make a parent happy at the moment.

Shift schedules. Where to begin? Instead of working the standard 8 hours, Willowbrae operates based on 8 1/2. That's fine (a little annoying, but I digress). However...management always seems to forget to organize staff in such a way that people are able to leave on time. For some reason, staff have to hunt down somebody in charge to let them know they've ended and they have X amount of kids. Or they end up wandering the halls with a number of kids and splitting them among other classrooms. Parents have complained multiple times about their children not being in certain classrooms, or having to hunt down their kids at the end of the day. It's insane!

Overall, anyone who works here for at least a couple of months will understand these ongoing issues. It's quite a shame, considering all the potential Willowbrae has as a centre. If you've just graduated school, I'd say take the job and learn about what kind of environment you DON'T want to work in for your next job.

This is one of the worst childcare companies I’ve ever worked for. The children were completely disregulated as they hadn’t a consistent teacher for longer than a few weeks because of so much turnover. (On my first day I was hearing stories of staff leaving after a week.) On my first day they threw me into rotation right away when I didn’t know anybody or anything. And then the lead teacher in the room wasn’t there, so it was a sub with the new teacher who neither knew what was going on or how the routine of the day is. The children were some of the worst behaved children I have ever met. There was a level of respect for the teachers that the children never developed because I would get called names and hit and kicked and laughed at. I have never been so disrespected by children in my life, and it made the job so much more difficult. And the parental relationships were harder to form because sometimes they didn’t want to believe you or just leave before you had a chance to talk to them. I often came home crying because the days got more and more stressful. There was also extremely limited support with the children we had on the spectrum. All 3 (in separate classrooms) had a child high on the spectrum, and one teacher to go around. The stress level gets insurmountable because we have to help this child and the 20+ children in the classroom. And there was very little support from there. 
Also, if I child was struggling during nap time and talking too much, they would move them to a different classroom (if teacher-child ratio worked) because they were being too disruptive. Which in turn would make the class they go into disrupted too. 
The pay, and only half hour lunch breaks, on top of all of that was not worth the pay was giving me, not even close. It was a job that I had to leave for my mental health. Never work there, seriously

What is the best part of working at the company?
Company cares much about the development and care of the children, as an educator I was given great mentorship, leadership opportunities, and was appreciated. I learned many skills here such as customer service working with parents and families, team work with fellow educators and was given encouragement and help on my professional development. the director is understanding and fair. Due to the large size of the daycare there is  not much availability for sick days and many times I had to work sick or stay home without pay due to low sick time given to employees. booking vacation time is difficult and competitive in a first come first serve with all the staff at the daycare. Overall I look back on my time with fondness and an appreciation for the people I learned from here. 

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
The nature of the job is fast paced and sometimes overwhelming because of the fast paced environment, however if help was needed the director and office staff always made sure to send in an extra person when help was needed. 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
The work environment is positive and all staff are encouraged to do their best and are given mentoring and strategies to help individuals be better equipped with skills to manage situations them selves. The daycare is very culturally inclusive, the coworkers I worked with enjoyed sharing their culture with me in forms or food, language, garments and many more. 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
The day is very routine based, along with improvisations to fit the children’s needs

I love the kids and the other teachers.

Management?
Lacks consistency, terrible communication between each other, plays favorites BIG TIME, makes you feel like you're at fault every time there's a situation, "listens" to your concerns but never acts on them unless it benefits them, doesn't really care about the staff, always takes the parents' side even when their staff is in the right, always says "yes" to parents' requests even if safety of staff and other children are at risk, doesn't take the time to get to know their staff and the kids attending the centre, makes you go to work or stay at work even when you're about to collapse, says one thing but does another, gives you instructions last minute then rushes you about it, talks the big talk but don't walk the big walk, makes you feel incompetent even when they don't really know what's going on in your room, chooses sides based on how much they like someone instead of on facts, keeps a staff or fires a staff based on how much they like the staff

Typical day at work?
You wait more than an hour for a bathroom break, you pull your hair out trying to work with SEVERAL challenging kids at the same time, you don't get any type of support from management about your situation

Workplace culture?
Staff are nice, friendly, helpful. But there's a lot of complaints you'll hear because no one's really happy there.

Most enjoyable part of the day?
Having to finally head home after waiting forever for someone to cover you at the end of your shift

What I learned?
Managers make or break a work experience.

I've been with Willowbrae for almost a year and I have had nothing but issues for the last 4 months. 

There are MANY concerns with management and their choices. Under qualified staff are hired in preference to qualified staff, the programs are severely understaffed, staff who do attend work regularly and put effort into their work are severely under appreciated, management is choosy about who they hire (severely lacking diversity), refusal to promote their educators from within the company, classrooms are only given $25 a month for any additional supplies the classroom needs, the program lacks organization, lack of toys and supplies to rotate throughout the program, and many more concerns.

It also seems that there is a lack of appropriate pay for educators with no room for growth. As mentioned previously, they do not hire their management team from within. Not sure how educators are supported to grow if they are never given the opportunity to. Especially when they mentioned their career goals to the director. 

Monthly meetings would benefit the program as well as professional development opportunities for the educators. 

There is definitely need for improvement with this company.

A stressful place to work. A typical day at work is as follows, arrival of children, sensory and table play, doing exercise/yoga for 15 minutes, tidying up and washroom break, having snacks, doing art, circle time, getting ready to go outside, outdoor play, lunch, nap time, afternoon snack, exercise/yoga, creative/art time, sensory. Everything is done twice in a day. There is no clear curriculum. It says in their website that their curriculum is emergent, high scope and Montessori, however, when you actually be at work, the activities with children are more teacher-led than emergent. They also advertise that their academies have a professional cleaning crew but it's actually the ECEs who clean and sanitize, mop the centre, throw the garbage away in addition to other things. They don't pay as they should since they want to profit and I get that. The hardest part of the job are the following, I am always left in the room by myself, doing the activities with children and also worrying about filling up their communication and daily log software. I think that the software takes away the time and attention that should be for children. Most enjoyable part is getting hugs and compliments from children. 

Trail day was mostly sugar coated and signing papers most the time. Their are to many behavioural challenging children and then children that purposely become disobedient as a reaction to the children with special needs.
They have cameras in every room and knit pick. They’ve expected me to jump in without knowing much of what I was supposed to do that week (theme/curriculum based on observation). For the last hour of the day where I’m basically on my own over daytime ratio with challenging children that are constantly running or crying, and trying to sign out children (under which parent pick up). I was left with 12 children and 8 attendances, from 5-6pm and didn’t know 10 of them that were dropped off in my room after 5. 

This place has given me burnout and stress within 3 days. There turnover rate is high for a reason. If somewhere hires without a trial day don’t agree. 

This was an amazing place to work when I first started.  However with a change in center management things have gone down hill.  The owners of this location franchise are difficult, worried about the bottom line as in money as staff have left they aren't replaced and we are still told that we are over in labour.  Not a lot of support for behavioral children when necessary  the staff is not really supported with help either (repeat calls for bathroom breaks) ridiculous amounts of people away all the time. The owners love to sit daily and watch the cameras in hopes of catching workers not being productive this equals emails to the director and you get talked to once again (sometimes what they think they saw was not the whole picture) as conclusions are drawn upon.  

the management was poor; constant overratio and over workload; staff's personal health was not being respected and acknowledged; new hirings were on constantly, not helpful for the regular staff and the daily routines at all. Low wages for those who are experienced and good at what they do, yet same wage for those who don't know their job and don't know how to interact with children. Lack of materials, same toys for the whole time. Children were not provided with much opportunity with different materials. Staff for each program are unstable, like with regular staff but doing subbing job at other classrooms. Stressful environment. Staffs personalities are great, good for making friends, but not for professional working partners.

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Early childhood teacher 15 salaries reported	$20.88 per hour
Educator 8 salaries reported	$19.25 per hour
Child care center cook 1 salary reported	$17.09 per hour
Éducateur de la petite enfance 1 salary reported	$20.39 per hour
Cook 1 salary reported	$18.81 per hour

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