How reviews work
Reviews on America DayCare come only from families the daycare’s records show as enrolled, or who booked a tour through America DayCare. Every review follows the same rules, good or bad.
Who can write a review
- Parents and guardians, 18 or older, enrolled through the daycare’s parent portal, or who booked a tour through America DayCare
- One review per invitation email address for each daycare. You can update it later.
- Shown with your first name and last initial. Your email is never shown. In a small daycare, the provider may still recognize you.
Honest by rule
- We publish good and bad reviews alike, and the same rules apply to every review.
- We never pay or reward anyone for a review, and daycares can’t pay to remove or change one.
- Owners, staff and their families can’t review their own daycare.
- Describe what you saw and experienced. Don’t state as fact things you don’t know are true.
The 72-hour reply window
- Every review waits the same 72 hours, good or bad, so the daycare can prepare a reply.
- The daycare is told about each new review, except reviews we hold for a child-safety check. It can reply publicly or ask us to check the review against these rules.
- After 72 hours the review is published unless it breaks a rule. If the daycare asks us to check it, we may hold it for up to 7 days while we do; then it is published unless it breaks a rule.
How ratings work
- The star rating is the average of the overall stars in published reviews, shown with the number of reviews.
- Reviews from families who booked a tour count the same as reviews from enrolled families. Reviews held for a safety check aren’t counted until the check ends.
- The category ratings are parents’ opinions, shown separately. They are not inspections.
- Reviews are shown newest first.
What we remove
- Children’s names, photos or other personal details
- Phone numbers, addresses or emails
- Threats, harassment, hate speech or discrimination
- Profanity or sexual content
- Reviews not based on your own experience, or about another daycare
- Ads, spam or links
- Reviews from anyone under 13
- Reports of possible abuse or neglect, which we handle as described below
Safety concerns go to people who can act
- If a child is in immediate danger, call 911.
- To report suspected abuse or neglect, including at a daycare, call the Texas Abuse Hotline at 1-800-252-5400 (24 hours a day) or report at txabusehotline.org ↗. Texas law requires anyone who has reasonable cause to believe a child has been abused or neglected to report it.
- To report a daycare that isn’t following the state’s rules, use the same hotline or Texas Health and Human Services ↗.
- A review is not a report to the state. When a review describes possible abuse or neglect of a child, a person on our team reads it before anything is published, and where Texas law requires, America DayCare will report it to the Texas Abuse Hotline within 24 hours. We don’t publish reports of abuse or neglect as reviews.
Rules for daycares
- A daycare may post one public reply to each review and may ask us to check a review against these rules.
- Daycares may not threaten legal action over a review, publicly accuse a reviewer of lying without good reason, contact a reviewer to get a review changed or removed, or offer anything for writing, changing or removing a review.
- If you think the state record on a daycare page doesn’t match the state’s current data, email support@americadaycare.com with “Record correction” in the subject. We’ll check it against the state’s data and correct or note any difference, usually within 30 days.
Who runs this
- America DayCare is run by Texas Digital Asset Management Group Inc, the company that makes Day Care of Texas, software that many daycares pay for.
- Only daycares that use Day Care of Texas can invite families to review, and each owner decides whether to turn invitations on.
- Paying doesn’t change a daycare’s ranking, its state record or which reviews we publish.
Report or appeal
- Anyone can report a review that breaks these rules.
- If we hold or remove your review, you can ask why or appeal at support@americadaycare.com from the address your invitation was sent to. We aim to answer within 5 business days.
Reviews are the opinions of the parents who write them, not of America DayCare. The state record on each daycare page comes from Texas public data and is separate from reviews.