La Petite Academy

This review is long overdue.
If you care at all about your children you will not enrol them here. Read all the other negative reviews they speak for themselves. I am furious with the level of care my children have received since enrolling. It is one of my biggest regrets as a mother. My kids hated going, there were a couple of times where my daughter just sat quietly when I dropped her off and she would start to swell up with tears. It broke my heart because it wasn’t like her to do that I knew she was miserable there.
–The majority of the teachers they hire are a joke, they are not people who love children or even want to be around children they have zero passion for making a difference in your child’s lives, they hate their jobs and it is very apparent. They don’t show any affection towards kids. 99% of them don’t speak proper english.
–They go through so much staff we’ve seen so many people come and go we didn’t bother to learn anyone’s names anymore (this says a lot about this place)
–They almost lost their license because of multiple incidences of children being left behind. One of them was a 2 year old left outside.
–I’ve come in many mornings with my kids where they were well above their ratios.
–I’ve had to intervene with kids fighting with each other because there was only 1 teacher present and she was busy changing a diaper or doing something else.
–They have a lot of un-​ruly kids at this daycare, my kids would pick up horrible behaviours from the other kids. They often came home with bite marks and bruises that would go un-​reported and teachers would lie about what happened. Now that they can communicate and articulate with us they tell us about «so and so» pushing or hitting them which again went un-​reported. There were 2 incidences of cars being broken into in their parking lot, they don’t have any security cameras anywhere on the premise.
–They don’t automatically put sunscreen on your kids. We had to fill out a special form and even then they still wouldn’t put it on, I had to keep reminding them and even brought it up with the director (marni?, sorry trying to forget her name she was awful). She told me it was my job to put it on them in the morning before I dropped them off. First of all WTF is the point of that form second of all mornings are so hectic trying to get everyone out the door, I don’t have time to cover 2 kids head to toe with sunscreen and buy the time they go out to play they will need at least 2 more applications! And in California of all places, its always sunny! My kids often had red faces and arms as a result.
–Marni lost many of our original documents and made us refill everything all over again, she also made us forge dates on documents (not a lie)
–Getting in and out of the building is a real pain in the ass, you have a code to enter in the first door, then you have to punch in a code to check your kids in then sign a book with the time, then you have a second door to go through with another code. Oh but wait your not done yet, once you get to your kids class you have to fill out their «daily» with the date and what they ate so far and how many pee’s/poops. What a pain in the rear!
–They don’t have plastic guard shields on their doors cracks/​hinges so my son got his fingers completely crushed by a steel door.
–We were also accused of not paying for a week. When we asked them which week they could’t produce an answer and asked us to review our bank records. Finally they produced a few separate weeks to look into so we crossed checked out bank statements and sure enough we had paid. What a waste of time this was
I could go on and on, as a mother I am irate, I was so happy the day we left that hell hole and so were my kids. If staying home was a possibility I would of, if somehow you can make staying home a possibility for you then please do, your kids will be so much better off. I noticed a night and day difference in my kids happiness and behaviour within a week of leaving.

This school is not a safe or honest place to enroll your child. My family has been apart of this school for a little over a year and I have seen dozens of turnover of staff and students. I am at the end with their lies and empty promises. No one wants to be apart of this dishonest operation. Their new management has been scripted to bend the truth about licensing violations. The truth is that they leave children unattended outside and in the bathroom; they don’t supervise which leads to a biting epidemic; teachers are not qualified and they coverup injuries. It can all be found here
They will sell to you that there is a new director, but it is clear that she is naïve. She is unable to explain any of the previous incidents or how she plans to improve the school. And while I have only had limited interactions with her she appears to have no clue about how to run a school or the families and children enrolled; therefore I cannot see their problems improving. After multiple broken promises, and potential dangers to my child’s safety we will be taking weeks off work to find another school. I cannot bare dropping her off there ever again. No parent should question their child’s safety at school and considering this is the only school in Chula Vista on probation, then it should be the one school you never consider.

If I could rate this place no stars I would. My daughter went here for a few months and the lead teacher in her class was the best, but the director and assistant director were horrible. They were inattentive and pretended to care about your issues, but they didnt. My daughter came home with bites and bruises all the time. Her nose and face were a mess, it’s like they never wiped her face. She also didn’t smell great when she came home from school. Her diaper was always crooked and she was never wiped well. After a while she started showing that she didn’t like this school. I wouldn’t enroll any of my kids here again.

My 4 yr old is enrolled here and the staff has completely helped her adjust to a new environment. They take the time to give her one on one when she’s dropped off. She comes home telling me how much she likes Darcie and Mrs. Penny and teacher koko. They have been working on sight words and she’s really absorbing all the education they are giving her. This place is great.

I never enrolled my child, so I do not personally know about the teachers etc. I walked in with my mother and walked out because it smelled terrible and the kids were running around like maniacs and noone was around to tend to us and greet us etc. Horrible experience… I walked right out!

Sign your infant or toddler to La Petite Academy if u want them to be tiny human punching bags for the older kids. The workers were nice and friendly they watch your kids play but do nothing to stop kids from fighting, perhaps because they’re sitting on their asses when they should be supervising and keeping kids busy. Oh, if your kid comes home with marks or bruises you can count on staff to deny deny deny! They have the nerve to imply that if they did not see it… It did not happen! They claim they keep track of injuries via incident reports… hmmmm those only exist when you ask for copies and even then they don’t accurately describe what happened. Why not report concerns to the director? Well that witch takes no responsibility for what you report and denies that it even happened. Staff here at La Petite are both liars and incompetent. I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS PLACE AT ALL! ENROLL AT YOUR OWN RISK.

I’ve had to take my nephew here a few times when my sister couldn’t due to a busy schedule. Poor thing, he’s came home with bite marks ALL OVER HIS ARM, and workers had no answer or knowledge to it. Second WTF moment– unexplained bruises. NO THANKS. We quickly switched providers.

La Petite Academy, Chula Vista is a great place for children. I had an opportunity to join the staff at one of their fun-​filled annual events and was thoroughly impressed. As a financial services professional, I work in customer service daily. Though running a preschool is a completely different business, the staff displayed exemplary customer service. We have to remind ourselves that this type of «customer service» is a principal reflection on the most important «customer» our society has today, the children. It was nice to surround myself with such great people, and more importantly, happy kids! Kudos to the leaders of the Chula Vista La Petite Academy.