Too much screen time and not monitoring what they are doing on their computers. Councellors sharing inappropriate content from their phones (I.e. games and videos not meant for the age group they are supervising). Edible projects are all junk food and sugar.

Safe place where kids can play with their peers.

Double standards, not following your own policy, and counselers that don't respect and communicate with supervisor. Kids get hurt, and the perpetrator gets away with it. Fostering an environment of disrespect, hostility and bullying.

Our family has been part of the South Mountain YMCA ECLC for decades, and now our grandson attends. We love the strong sense of community, the opportunity to make new friends, and seeing dedicated staff members who have been there for 20 to 30 years.

The teachers and staff are all so loving and caring for the children. It warms my heart to drop off my kid every day knowing he's getting all the love and attention.

Honestly I am so happy we have the YMCA in our school. BUT I do believe that things need to change. I have so many ideas with add'l cost to parents if needed. I hear so many times that the they get yelled at all the time and i can only imagine how hard it is to control all those kids at that price. I would love to see some really awesome classses they can pick from if they want. ( maybe join on with O'cannary, or yoga for kids, or something with some for an hour for them to take, or something to give them options during the aftercare time. Maybe having a structured homework person to help for kids grade 3-5. We do aftercare but also do BTB which is amazing and my kiddo love it. Maybe have a focus group with parents to help come up with some ideas!

The Y has become a second family from The 2s program to aftercare - the staff goes above and beyond - my kids love it

Attitude towards children, individual approach, politeness, consideration, conditions. We like everything!!!

We have loved everything about our Y experience. The staff members are very caring and our children have always been happy to go there. We have seen them learn and grow so much at the Y. It's a warm, friendly, nurturing place. We also love that almost all of the staff members who were there a decade ago with our oldest child still work there now that our youngest attends. The ability to maintain consistent staff speaks to the quality of the program and workplace for adults and the children who attend benefit from having experienced teachers.

Untimely and unorganized communication.

Being a Y family has positively impacted each member of our family, espcially our children who have excelled in their social, emotional and early learning and development. We truly believe we have found a strong supportive community base in being involed with the South Mountain YMCA.

The staff, the activities, the ability to keep my kids off screens after school. So grateful to the YMCA SACC team!

The onsite aftercare staff is FANTASTIC.

However, the administration of our branch is completely chaotic. Parents cannot rely on YMCA aftercare programs to be steady, accessible, and predictable, because childcare leadership cannot seem to create, maintain, or deploy systems that make registration and placement processes understandable and equitable. Every year, there's some new form of chaos in the registration system, and this year was particularly egregious. Deploying a placement lottery for families *already in the system* was a complete failure of critical thinking. It's understandable that one would want to create a new placement system beyond "first to log in" but this lottery program should have been phased in for new students and existing students should have been grandfathered into current placements for the duration of their aftercare experience. What's worse? Not getting something you never had? Or having something you rely on taken away from you? The lottery system put parents in a position of having a program they relied on ripped away from them and scrambling to figure out what comes next. It was utterly nonsensical. Unfortunately, the YMCA essentially has a monopoly in our town, so other options are lacking.

Also, since the changeover to the new website/communications platform, communications has been very messy. We regularly receive emails about events after the events occur. I imagine this is also the source of the registration day meltdown. Probably should consider a different vendor or better training for staff in using the current platform.

Wonderful staff! Truly grateful for all that they do!

The counselors are outstanding and Mr Rafeeq is the best of the best. If he left, we’d follow him whether he went.

The registration system is a disaster and the online platform is so much worse after the upgrade. On site is not super organized or well supervised. Still great hours and friendly staff.

The sign up process for next year was terrible and caused our family immense stress. During aftercare, there was a calendar of activities which never seemed to take place. Multiple times at pick up, the kids were just sitting at a table doing nothing - they had no access to toys, books, art materials. They were told they just had to sit there.

The South Mountain YMCA has the best creative curriculum; I love that the children are learning while having fun. Also, the staff are welcoming from the time you walk in the door and as you walk throughout the building. My children have blossomed here, and I am grateful for the staff members that brightened their days and grew their minds.

Good program, engaged and friendly teachers and staff. The cost, however, is higher than some PE-owned daycares which is strange for a nonprofit

So far, I would rate my experience a 7 out of 10. Overall the environment has been good, but there has been some miscommunication regarding the Girls Time to Play program. I hope communication improves moving forward because I believe the program has great potential.

It really would depend on what sports program. We really did enjoy basketball and Coach Fred. He taught the kids a lot of skills, he had a lot of patience working with little ones and he also kept him on task. Great mix of discipline and patience. My little one really enjoyed him. Can you make sure the kids learn skills, but also had time to demonstrate skills through drills and games.

We also did camp with my older son last year, we had not so great of experience. The kids would go to a park each morning as their routine, but they were told they could not use the equipment because someone could get hurt. Additionally, he felt as if they were always told to be quiet and not play around. However, it’s was a fun camp, my son is definitely one who will respect authority and listen to counselors or anyone in charge. He begged me not to go back to camp, and we stopped going midway.

We also did gymnastics with my older son. He enjoyed the general classes, but I felt like it wasn’t very organized. We never got to see students for learning, except for just watching the practices. Not a bad experience but not great.