De La Fontaine Trilingual Montessori School - St. Pete

We had an extremely distressing and unacceptable experience with De La Fontaine Trilingual Montessori. This was our 13-month-old's very first time in daycare, and the level of negligence we witnessed was absolutely appalling. Our daughter gagged and vomited during snack time due to improper supervision and forceful feeding, something we had warned the staff about in advance. Instead of being transparent, the school initially lied to us and told us she hadn't eaten. When we pressed for answers, they changed their story multiple times and ultimately only admitted fault when the county got involved. After reviewing the video, the licensing investigator documented multiple violations and explicitly told us that staff were seen "shoving food" into our baby's mouth. The same short video clip showed toddlers eating each other's food without any teacher intervening and zero evidence of required handwashing or hygiene protocols. The most insulting part of this entire experience was the school's follow-up. Rather than take full responsibility, the director attempted to excuse the behavior by saying that one of the teachers was simply "showing food items to the group" as part of a multilingual immersion activity. Let's be clear: misusing "multilingual education" to justify unsafe, unsanitary feeding practices is not only disingenuous, it's dangerous. We support multilingualism in early childhood education. We do not support weaponizing that philosophy to minimize valid concerns about health violations and the safety of infants. The leadership has still not taken true accountability. They refused to let us see the video ourselves, and have not returned any of our calls or messages. It took the intervention of the county for them to even acknowledge wrongdoing, and their only direct response to us was filled with canned language that tried to spin our daughter's distress as a "misunderstanding." We removed our child immediately and want to strongly warn other parents, especially those with infants, about the risks of sending your child here. This facility failed on the most basic level: keeping a baby safe while eating. No educational program, no matter how well-marketed, is worth that risk.