Children's International School

We could not be more happy with this school (CIS at N Scott). Highly recommended. Ms Ando, Ms Sonia and Ms Gayle are the best! Thank you for everything, we will really miss you.
May 26th, 2023

I love CIS and am so happy to have found this gem of a preschool for my two kids. Both attended CIS from age 2 to start of kindergarten - actually the first two years of my second, before he could attend, I absolutely couldn't wait to switch him to CIS and out of his daycare.  If your reading and have not toured yet - book a tour now.  It is such a homey environment, Ms Gayle the director is wonderful and the lead teacher in every classroom are great.  Their love of kids truly shows. I couldn't be more grateful to have had my kids under their care.  Many staff members have been there for years and they really care about making it a nurturing and loving environment for the kids.  There were weekly newsletters with photos of the children and summaries of their activities.  Their approach is very student led but engaging, with a focus on the natural environment which I loved. The school composts, they have the kids grow vegetables like tomatoes, there is a focus on drinking water from their water bottles - not just cycling through juice and milk boxes.  They do a lot of creative projects with reusing recyclable materials.  Pre covid there were a lot of opportunities to be involved and participate like guest reader, or guest presenter.  They also did field trips.  It was a bummer my youngest did as much of that parent engagement but I thought they handled covid well.At each of my kids graduation, they gave us a binder full of photos and artwork over the past three years - it was such a heartwarming gift and both of my kids (and me) enjoy looking back at their years at CIS.
Oct 20th, 2022

Last summer, We were really impressed with the program, paid the waitlist fee, the check was cashed, and then upon meeting our toddler with a speech delay (that had attended a different CIS location a few months prior where we had a very positive experience), the N. Scott Street location's director via email declined to give us the enrollment materials. She stated that she consulted with the owner and didn't think they were a "good fit" for our son.  I spoke to the owner who agreed to enroll my child (I suspect because the director may have run afoul of ADA), but we decided against it because we didn't have faith that the director or staff would provide a welcoming environment for our child.
Mar 22nd, 2019

Unfortunately, we had a very negative experience at this daycare. Things started out well and I loved the teachers, at first. However, after a few months, my son started having some potty accidents at school and then the teachers would mention that he was having a hard time keeping his hands to himself and bumping into other students. Obviously, this was disappointing to me, and I tried working on these issues at home with my child. However, it was NOT communicated to me that his behavior was a serious issue OR that it was out of the ordinary. A few months later, there were some changes -- my son got a new teacher and we also had a new baby at home. All of a sudden, he started hating daycare and his potty issues got worse, so much so that they required medical intervention. He started crying hysterically whenever I'd drop him off at daycare. He said he hated his school and his teachers. I couldn't understand what was going on, and figured that it was because of all of the changes going on. I tried to talk to the daycare about the fact that he was suddenly complaining a lot, but they just seemed surprised and not concerned. They did mention that he was having a hard time listening to his teachers and that he was bumping into other students, having some aggression, and being disruptive, but I figured he just needed a few weeks to get back to "normal". I thought the daycare would understand what he was going through. I finally realized his behavior was actually a bigger issue after an incident report and the director telling me in person, "We are all just FRUSTRATED with him." This statement was really surprising to me. Then, the director informed me that they had been putting my child in timeout, multiple times throughout the day, and that he was even being put into the director's office for timeout. I did not know that his behavior had become so serious or out of the ordinary. I wish they had been more honest with me earlier about his behavior and how they were responding to him, and that what they were doing was not working. My son was telling me at home, "I'm just a bad kid. Nobody likes me. I don't have friends." This is obviously heartbreaking to hear from a three-year-old. I pulled my son out of the school after this conversation with the director. This experience deeply affected his self-esteem. Luckily, he went to a daycare afterwards that tried to understand him better. For example, whereas at Children's International School, they told me that he was "out of control and purposefully bumping into other students," and painting him in a very negative light -- the second daycare observed that he seemed to be struggling with sensory issues and that he was looking for input from his environment to tell where he was in space... hence the bumping. If we had known about his sensory issues, we could have started occupational therapy WAY back. In the future, I hope that Children's International School can better communicate with parents so that we can provide intervention EARLIER. I also hope they can get better training on identifying students with special needs earlier on. I believe his experience at Children's International School did set him back a bit -- we are still working on improving his self-esteem. I regret not knowing earlier and not getting him the help that he needed earlier on.
Jul 18th, 2023

We have had two children attend this school.  The home setting affords the children a backyard with a large tree to play under.  If you are looking for an institutional setting, this is NOT for you.  The place looks and feels like a home.I am writing this review because the place deserves more that the 2.5 stars it has.  But I write this with hesitation because Childrens International School is a hidden gem and if everybody knows about it, the reasonable prices will be no more...so I write this to tell people about how great the place is but don't you tell anybody!  Or tell everybody and have them raise the price but make sure the director gives me a discount ;)There are frequent emails on what the children are doing.  The emails are very cute because my kid is secretive and never tells me what happens.Prior to Covid, the parents were very involved.  One parent who works for educational outreach at NASA came with all sorts of educational props.  I work in healthcare so not to be undone, I showed up with surgical hats and masks.  Then I put extremity bandages on the kids.  This was an unmitigated disaster as the kids loved their bandages and didn't take them off.  Each parent, when picking up their child would freak out because it appeared that the kid had done something like broke their arm, been to the ER, got casted, and nobody called them!  I do think the kids liked the bandages though.  Hopefully it also reduced the kids' natural fear of medical environments.I was one of those parents who's child was "the last kid at daycare."  The end of the day usually had story time.  They didn't really want to leave. At the end of preschool, they gave us a three ring binder of special artwork our kid had made, with pictures of him and other momentos.  This was really a very special surprise and we will treasure this for many years.
Sep 23rd, 2020