YWCA Ulster County

Reviews

• BK

  Brandon King

  Oct 21, 2025
  5.0
  We enrolled my son in their preschool program this year and we couldn’t be happier for him. He is thriving socially, linguistically, and emotionally. His teachers work so hard to create engaging and play-based lessons (they made apple pies last week!) and communicate well with us. We highly recommend this school!
• EB

  Emma Beede

  Oct 9, 2025
  5.0
  Our 1 yr old started at daycare here in August, about 2 months ago, and we’ve been very impressed. All the teachers are wonderful and clearly care about the kids. They keep us updated throughout the day and share photos via the app. Tori just started as the new education director and is doing a wonderful job - she is on energized and on top of things, and has already made big improvements to the program. The kids get to do fun fall activities like painting pumpkins, apple stamping, and going on a fall field trip. They eat great lunch every day from a local catering business. Beyond being grateful just to have reliable childcare, I feel like my son is getting a lot of enrichment from coming to this program. Thank you all!
• SH

  Sarah Heslip

  Jul 8, 2025
  1.0
  The teachers at Magic Circle genuinely care and work hard to support the kids, but their efforts are completely overshadowed by poor management. The administration (CEO and Board) is disorganized and seems more focused on cutting corners than providing quality care. There’s no preschool or PreK playground, kids barely go outside, and the facility itself is in bad shape — broken fixtures, sewage spills and barely any working AC. Until leadership changes, I can’t recommend this daycare. It is not currently a safe or nurturing environment for children.
• NY

  Nikhil Yerawadekar

  Jul 3, 2025
  1.0
  In the four years I've been sending my child here, I've seen a real decline at this place and families deserve a heads up. There is a lack of care from the leadership that has made it a really chaotic environment, and we have dealt with a ton of strange disconcerting stuff that you would not see at a well functioning child care facility. Staff turnover is out of control, I think my child likely had over twenty different teachers in their classroom this year, and some of our favorite teachers were fired or forced to quit for dubious at best reasons. Concerns of racism from families and staff are dismissed by the leadership, in obvious contradiction to the YWCA's "end racism" slogan. The place has received grants towards renovations and staff pay increases, and has not made good on their stated commitments. In fact there was no outdoor play area for the kindergarten readiness class this entire school year. Kids images got broadcast on Spectrum NY1 TV without families' consent. And for years, an unleashed, unsupervised dog would be allowed to wander the halls without any heads up to or permission from parents-- in a facility that cares for infants. There are a lot of awesome teachers that have come through this place and I hope a change of leadership happens so that it can go back to being a positive contributor to our community. People need quality child care and this place has the potential to be great. But that's not possible with the current leadership.
• KG

  Kaitlyn Greenough

  Jul 2, 2025
  1.0
  I wish I could recommend this place. The teachers are wonderful and doing their best, but administration needs to change and be held accountable. We were with the school for 4 years and had been happy overall, but then witnessed the decline especially in this past year. There is no playground for preschool/pre-k. They will tell you it's opening in the fall but I wouldn't believe them, they told us it would be open 5/1 but there's still no actual progress on construction. Children have been bullied and treated poorly by a staff member who has not been held accountable and is still allowed to interact with children. Look up their OCFS violations. Meanwhile, beloved staff who the children loved are fired for little reason, or leave abruptly due to poor treatment. They're now on their fifth school director in about four years, most of the directors have left suddenly. The issue is higher up the chain of command, those who can bring accountability refuse to, despite a lot of effort from parents to bring our concerns to them. All parents get in return for bringing our concerns is defensiveness and lies. It's so sad to see this place that has had a well-deserved reputation for decades decline so rapidly, and I hope that those with the power to bring some change & accountability to the situation decide to stand up and make things better, listen to the parents and the staff.

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