Harrisonville Community Center

The community center has a summer camp and afterschool care program for ages 5-12 that my children were enrolled of the summer. I cannot recommend this program and urge any parents considering this program to evaluate their values before they enroll.

My experience and expectations may be very different than yours but here is what I found.

Most of the staff are high school kids with a few young adults littered throughout the ranks. Any adult staff is typically in an administrative role and not directly involved with the children. From my observation I get a very strong sense a complete lack of control and supervisor, staff becomes involved as a last resort.

During visits to the local public pool children under the age of 10 have full unsupervised access to pool. Headcounts are done hourly during adult swim at the same time the public has access to the pool. They state an attendance average of 80 per week and at no time have I observed more than 5 staff at the pool. Many of which are parked under an umbrella chatting paying no attention to the pool. In the 2 months we attended there has never been a time where staff was aware of my 6 and 9 year olds location during afternoon pickup at the pool.

During a recent incident with my son and the final straw with my patience, a staff member forcefully my son from a stair case while he was acting out. He was acting out, screaming and refusing to go to the office. Of course he was wrong but the staff member’s impatience with his disruption to the fitness centers below put both him and his staff at risk of injury. He (6) kicked and injured a teen staff member on a large concrete stair case, what if they both fell?

They are not licensed nor do they have staff that completed any childcare certification. They take risks with small children in the name of having fun during the summer and ignore common sense. When issues are brought up to senior staff there comment is typically “we are not a day care” or “we cannot please everyone.” I brought my concerns to the Director of Parks and Rec, Chris Deal. Although he voiced concern and recommended a meeting I have not been contacted after providing my contact info.