Caughlin Preschool

We have a daughter currently at Caughlin Preschool. We love everything about this preschool from the friendly directors, the caring teachers, the cute classrooms, to the cleanliness of the building. Our daughter has made leaps and bounds while attending Caughlin. She quickly picked up what was being taught in the classroom and has brought it home to share with us. As an elementary teacher myself, I was very hesitant to commit to just any preschool because I know what it takes to run a professional school. Caughlin has exceeded our expectations and more. I highly recommend this preschool to anyone looking for a quality school with loving teachers.

So far everything has been wonderful for our son at caughlin preschool. We walk in the door and he gets excited to go play with his friends. The teachers are very nice and rave about how great he is and really seem to care. His first few days were very hard for me and they sent me text messages with photos to help ease my mind. After one week, my son is doing great and falling right into a good routine. I’ll add another review after he’s been there a few months but so far, so good!

I think these folks tried pretty hard to educate our challenging bilingual child. We know how difficult our child can be, but *in our child’s native language* our child is normal enough — still, not brilliant in pre-​school or anything. That, and the fact that we were about to pull our child out anyway because he wasn’t LEARNING anything from them; that’s the only reason I’m giving anything above a zero.
What I didn’t like was:
1. They seemed to goggle «Autism symptoms» when they had enough of our Childs misunderstanding/​ignoring of them. Then they brought in a social worker to prove with a laundry list of symptoms that he just couldn’t be taught. We promptly proved them wrong with the help of the social worker at that first meeting.
2. They built an entirely bogus case just to get rid of us; but if they had kindly asked us to LEAVE we would have done so — no need to try to say our child is essentially retarded… Just because someone speaks a different language and ignores you (admittedly not a good situation) doesn’t mean they are a moron. In that regard those of us who are educated outside the local area here — well I kind of got what I deserved I guess expecting less local Reno ignorance. I blame myself for that too — another reason we gave them 2 stars.
3. Finally, they used the social worker as a prop to kick us out. After we proved them wrong — they cleverly removed the social worker from the process and made their own bogus case behind both of our backs — then shoved it down our collective throats at a final «meeting» which was just a written condemnation and final trial and terminal judgment of our child. That final judgment was a recommendation for our child to receive special education from the county.
Being open minded I called the special education department the next day. They asked me what the symptoms were that he needed their help. I read off their verdict on our child to the special education manager on the phone — but they responded that they cannot help because they do not teach English nor do they think his case warrants their special education help.
Needless to say, we didn’t trust our non-​English speaking child to their school for help only to be mis-​directed into special ed.
So who’s rules are we following here?
Theirs. But they’re lucky we’re not the litigious type, this is a pretty open and shut case of defamation and exaggeration towards an innocent child for their convenience. I have a Psychology degree and my wife has a Legal Degree… but they did try and our child is not perfect at all.
But we understand, this is just a business that prefers to cater to working moms who have *kids that don’t need any further education* More like day care than school with a child to teacher ratio of 10+
On an emotional level that I’m trying to stay away from here; we’re not naïve enough to think this isn’t a for profit enterprise but — I think «pre-​schools» need to consider the level of TRUST we’re put into their institutions when we hand off an imperfect and vulnerable child into their care. We knew darn well this was not going to be easy or quick; our child has challenges. We’re comfortable enough not to need schooling for our schedules — my wife is a stay at home mother. This was strictly for education, mostly social and English language skills. What we really wanted was some help.
But we love our child and are willing to put the work into this. For them to categorize and judge a struggling child for their cold business purposes only brings up one word… cruelty. Or ignorance if you want to look on the bright side. But neither will help your child grow and advance the way a place called a «school» is ultimately supposed to, right?
Again, a frank conversation, perhaps one to one, where they said «off the record, we’re not the place to teach children English» would have saved us all a lot of time here.
We thought we were putting our child into the best school in the area — but it turns out it’s just the *best school if your kid is advanced enough for the school not to have to work too hard* If the child is not *and we admit out child is behind* because we insisted on a bilingual upbringing (which has big hurdles and maybe even some regrets now) then they «have a wait list of 50 students!» and they’ll get rid of your child and get on with an easier life for themselves!
Again, there is nothing wrong with this school if your kid is 100% and ready to go — but if not: prepare for your child to be judged, labeled, humiliated, and ultimately: expelled.