San Jose State Associated Students Child Development Center

It’s our 3^rd school year and we absolutely love the «AS-​CDC»! Love the play-​based & arts-​based Reggio Emilia approach. Love that it’s so welcoming to parents. Teachers are happy to talk to parents and parents are welcome in the room. I often linger in the morning to read a book or chat with the kids.
Facilities are fabulous. They have a new on-​site kitchen where they make most of the menu items from scratch and few processed foods. Lovely art studio. The parent committee is active. Scholastic book fair 2x/​year. Community-​building events like meet & greets and spaghetti dinners.
Parentworkshops are sometimes offered. Read Across America had parent participation with read alouds all day. Parents are encouraged to get involved and share their home cultures. Walking field trips to SJSU.
They are there to support parents and children through challenges. My daughter went through a biting phase and also still struggles with drop offs and staff have really teamed with us to help resolve concerns. My first time sent to the «principal’s office» (director) ended up being the most supportive and productive conference. They also helped me when we had head lice so she could return to school ASAP. The secretary Nancy is the best.
Ratios are lower than other places. In addition to the consistent, capable and caring lead teachers, there are asst teachers (who are often child dev majors at SJSU) and. there are interns who engage the children in creative and innovative activities. Photos of children and the daily agenda w/​the day’s summary are emailed daily to parents; great communication tool. It helps me to feel connected to my child and to initiate conversations with my child about her school experiences.
Lastly, they are the one of the few preschools in the county that are not only NAEYC accredited (national accreditation) but also got all 5’s on the their QIRS (state preschool rating system). They have optional sessions beyond the SJSU calendar for working families, so they are off session for very little of the year. They are accommodating with food restrictions from what I’ve seen.
Parking can be tough at times especially at preschool rush hours and at the beginning of with the semester. Also, there are some limitations on day combinations. Food is not all organic but very wholesome. There are cheaper child care options out here, but it’s a good value for a center-​based preschool and a great place for kids to call their 2^nd home.
A gem of a preschool for SJSU parents and the general community. We are so glad to be part of this school and are happy to give back. We’ve made lifelong friends here. Thanks, AS-​CDC.

This preschool uses the Reggio Emilia approach which I think fits for most kids. Our daughter has been in the school for just over a year and we are quite happy. Her teacher «Eddie» is well trained in the method and asks the kids lots of questions, guiding them into investigations of their own. They do a lot of projects about animals, nature, buildings, colors and paint, etc. One week they spent every day working on building a choo-​choo train that they could all sit in. I think it’s pretty amazing that they got a room full of energetic kids to focus on such a project for an entire week effort! My daughter regularly comes home with funny songs that they teach, and seems to have made quite a few friends. They do a healthy amount of reading books as well and have a good system for exposing the children to more books. While I think it is impossible for every child to be protected 100% of the time in what is naturally a more chaotic environment than a home, this place seems to do a pretty good job.

My 7 month old Jayla has been attending since she was 5 ½ months old and she loves it! She doesn’t cry when I leave and she is well taken care of here. The teachers love her to pieces and the moms I have met are great. The staff is friendly and they know my daughter and me by name which is big in my book. Jayla always eats a nice big breakfast and lunch here and even an extra snack when she stays late. She’s learning structure and how to play and get along with other babies. Her teacher is Shannon Woo in the Jasmine Room and she is very great at keeping in touch and keeping an open communication with me about everything Jayla has done in the day. This place is a God send!

My son has been going here for over a year now. He absolutely loves it! He had some trouble adjusting at first but the teachers and staff worked with him and now he is doing great. He is learning so much and doing great socially. The teachers and staff always make sure to keep me up to date on how he is doing. I am so happy I was able to find a place so wonderful for him.

The Child Development Center is wonderful in every aspect! My daughter has been attending since eight months – at first I was reluctant to place her in a child-​care facility, but quickly found out that this is a top notch facility. Before Lila started, we met with her teacher to discuss child specific: personality traits, learning styles, development, sleeping habits/​routines and create a plan that would promote creative learning/​development. It was a great ice-​breaker and opportunity to meet Lila’s teacher. Once she started, we would drop her off in the morning, wait for her to begin eating breakfast with her friends and say goodbye for the day. It was hard at first (probably harder for me), but i quickly saw – between the facilities and the efficient staff that this was the right place for our daughter. Lila has a great bond with her teachers, and as she grows, the same teachers will be with her until she enters Kindergartern. In addition to the stellar facilities and competent staff/​directors – we have periodic meetings with her teacher, in a partnership to set goals for our little girl. It’s wonderful to be involved and ask to be involved. Speaking of being active in our daughters learning – the Development Center asks parents to participate in volunteer work to benefit the children and their day-​care. Of course if you have a hectic schedule, there are other options to acheive your parent hours, and still contribute to the success of the Center. I could go on for days about how awesome this place is – but I will just leave it as «this is a great learning environment for any child – equipped with great facilities and stupendous Directors and Staff.»

It’s true, this place doesn’t even deserve one star! We withdrew our child within 5 days of attending. Yesterday was his last day. I made sure of it.
My child has been in daycare/​preschool since he has been 15 months. This is by far the worst school ever! I can’t believe how neglected my child was.
They have a sand box in the back of the preschool in which the kids play and I was told by the manager prior to my child starting, that the stray cats did their business there so they had to cover it with tarp. But yet they let my child play in it. I have found sand on my child’s face and near his lips while he ate his lunch. They let your child out in the storm to play outside even if your kid already has the sniffles. He had a very thick winter coat on and 3 shirts underneath. They were all soaked, including his under garments. Within 5 days, he had 3 injuries. 2 in which the school was unaware of. His hand was badly scratched, embedded with sand and was bleeding and the other was that he had a bruise on his knee the size of his knee. The third was a huge bruise and cut on the back of his head because some child pushed him into the table. My son told me that prior to the child pushing him into the table, they had a fight and apparently this kid loves to push him around. But, I guess the teacher didn’t care enough to stop the fight before he was pushed. My son told me that he had to wash the wound on his hand himself and when he got the bruise on his knee, all the teacher did was say that he will be fine. My child has asked the teacher to teach him some alphabets and was told «sure» but never bothered with him. I don’t know if it is just this teacher or the class itself but, this is unacceptable. Don’t waste your time or money as we had to pay a month to get him out of there and didn’t have him attend anyways. Sure they have a good deal on childcare and that you would only have to contribute about an hour per week, but why would you bother to help when they aren’t using that time to care for your child?

We had both of our kids here, our oldest from 18 month to 4 and a half years. The school is very well run. The teachers are fantastic, teaching through activities. The kids are always happy and having fun.

My son currently goes here and he absolutely loves it! i love it, too! It is a very comfortable and friendly environment, and the staff are very children-​oriented. They are very involved in the child’s growth by incorporating lots of arts and crafts, singing, dancing, games, and lots of play time in the backyard/​playground. They also like to get the parents involved as much as possible. The only thing that is difficult is contributing 15 hours or $ 120 to the ASCDC, considering I’m busy with school, and don’t have a lot of money to help out. But besides that, I love it there, and it’s great because it’s located right next to SJSU’s campus. This place always has good things said about it, and is always recommended by those whose children go there. I’ll warn you though, it is difficult to get your child into the program (took me a year and a half). Great place for SJSU parents!