Communikids or Caterpillar Preschool

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are also considering the Caterpillar preschool - I'll see it this Friday at an open house. I'm excited about it, but would love any other info. people have. We looked at Communikids and loved it, but really only want a half-day program for our 3-year-old, which isn't an option at Communikids.

CommuniKids parent here. Half day is an option for the youngest class (age 2.5 and up). Maybe PP's child is too old for that class? We really like the school and the teachers. It's a nice little community.

[Anonymous]

I am also looking at the Caterpillar Preschool and will attend the open house this Friday. I am a bit concerned about the hours (9:15-5:15) as ideally I would have liked a little more time on either end. As we have only one child, it is not realistic to have a nanny of course, but I wonder if anyone has experience with hiring a babysitter say just for pick between school and home. Not sure if this would be worthwhile for anyone!

[Anonymous]

Current Caterpillar parent here. I know at least one kid at school this year who has a part-time babysitter (though this year, there's no afternoon option, so everyone goes 9:15-12:30.) I've heard of other parents in the neighborhood hiring AU students for babysitting-- you might want to look into that.

[Anonymous]

Just saw Communikids today and was very impressed. Can any Communikids parents comment on the issue of the space - the 3-year-old classroom didn't have any windows and there's no playground. But the teacher is fantastic! Thoughts?

[Anonymous]

Communikids parent here. Space isn't so much of an issue. Sure, only the front of the school has two classrooms with windows. But we are ok with that because the interior is very bright, cheerful, happy and the kids don't mind at all.

Plus, they go outside to the biggest "playground" Fort Reno. Which is a wide, open space where they play all sorts of things. No playground in the "traditional" sense, but my daughter gets plenty of "playground after school and on weekends that I (and other parents at the school) rather like the idea of having the kids explore and play in a wide-open space and use their imaginations. It's a beautiful area, anyway. They kite fly, bubble blow, play tag, play tennis, hula hoops, explore, play music. Everytime I pass by there to check up on my daughter outside, she's having a good time.

And yes, the teachers are fantastic! Even if it wasn't a Soanish immersion preschool, this is a generally outstanding play-based preschool overall. I'm amazed at what the teachers have accomplished with the children and what they are teaching. My daughter, for example, is being taught things usually reserved for kindergardeners or first graders. She knows more than what my husband and I did at her age. I credit the warm and nurturing teachers and staff. They really are great people interested in the best education and environment for the kids. They get high marks from us.

[Anonymous]

Communikids is going through a transition as they are expanding. This has resulted in a mess in terms of the administration handling parents requests and concerns. While the teachers of the school are great, the school lacks of a play space for kids, books are lacking or in poor condition, and the administration is unresponsive. I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS SCHOOL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Communikids is going through a transition as they are expanding. This has resulted in a mess in terms of the administration handling parents requests and concerns. While the teachers of the school are great, the school lacks of a play space for kids, books are lacking or in poor condition, and the administration is unresponsive. I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS SCHOOL.

Yeah, we can tell you don't recommend it...from the 3 identical posts in three different CommuniKids threads that you bumped today. What happened to cause you to want to bump 3 old threads today?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Communikids is going through a transition as they are expanding. This has resulted in a mess in terms of the administration handling parents requests and concerns. While the teachers of the school are great, the school lacks of a play space for kids, books are lacking or in poor condition, and the administration is unresponsive. I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS SCHOOL.

Yeah, we can tell you don't recommend it...from the 3 identical posts in three different CommuniKids threads that you bumped today. What happened to cause you to want to bump 3 old threads today?

+1. Yes, please tell us what PERSONAL ax you have to grind with Communikids?!?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Communikids is going through a transition as they are expanding. This has resulted in a mess in terms of the administration handling parents requests and concerns. While the teachers of the school are great, the school lacks of a play space for kids, books are lacking or in poor condition, and the administration is unresponsive. I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS SCHOOL.

Yeah, we can tell you don't recommend it...from the 3 identical posts in three different CommuniKids threads that you bumped today. What happened to cause you to want to bump 3 old threads today?

+1. Yes, please tell us what PERSONAL ax you have to grind with Communikids?!?

Maybe her kid is on the waitlist and she's trying to dissuade others

[Anonymous]

My kids go to their summer camp (communikids) and they absolutely love it! They are now 5 and 3 and asking if they'll get to go this year. I also notice they come back speaking a lot more Spanish.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Communikids is going through a transition as they are expanding. This has resulted in a mess in terms of the administration handling parents requests and concerns. While the teachers of the school are great, the school lacks of a play space for kids, books are lacking or in poor condition, and the administration is unresponsive. I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS SCHOOL.

Yeah, we can tell you don't recommend it...from the 3 identical posts in three different CommuniKids threads that you bumped today. What happened to cause you to want to bump 3 old threads today?

+1. Yes, please tell us what PERSONAL ax you have to grind with Communikids?!?

Maybe her kid is on the waitlist and she's trying to dissuade others

Hi all, I am the parent who posted the negative review above. This is in response to the responses made after my post. If you are part of the Communikids administration as I suspect you are (few people use a capital K for Communi”K”ids), you should be paying more attention to the parents concerns than to this board. I understand this is a business, and for that same reason Communikids administration should listen and be receptive to their "clients’” concerns. Why now? What happened? Why should we recommend a business that is not receptive to its clients?

Since you are asking I'll explain:
- Administration is not receptive to parents concerns. In fact, there are no scheduled meeting(s) throughout the year for the administration to listen to parents concerns/ideas. To make things worse, the administration is not receptive to constructive criticism.

- Communication with the administration has worsened in the last couple of months probably due to the expansion of the school and new personnel. This is a sentiment shared and voiced by several parents. In fact, a recent survey carried out by a new family showed that the #1 parent concern was communication with the administration. It is understandable that transitory periods may lead to this; however, it has been over 6 months now and no improvements have been observed in this regard.

- School does not have a dedicated outdoor play space and most classrooms do not have windows. To be fair, parents are aware of this if they visit the school before they register their kids.

- Books in the classrooms are in poor condition and in very limited numbers.

Although I have highlighted some negative aspects of this school, to be fair, there are also positive things:
- Teachers are amazing
- Classrooms are clean and organized
- If you just care about paying your monthly fee and not getting involved at all with the school, this may be a perfect fit. Please be aware that I do not mean this in a bad way.

As per the waitlist comment, it is interesting that this board doesn’t get a lot of attention in months, but as soon as a negative comment appears someone immediately posts something in defense of the school and tries to discredit negative comments (by calling them a “personal ax”…). These comments usually come in bursts of 2-3 messages in short periods of time (1-2 days or within minutes of each other). Parents, make your own conclusions….

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Communikids is going through a transition as they are expanding. This has resulted in a mess in terms of the administration handling parents requests and concerns. While the teachers of the school are great, the school lacks of a play space for kids, books are lacking or in poor condition, and the administration is unresponsive. I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS SCHOOL.

Yeah, we can tell you don't recommend it...from the 3 identical posts in three different CommuniKids threads that you bumped today. What happened to cause you to want to bump 3 old threads today?

+1. Yes, please tell us what PERSONAL ax you have to grind with Communikids?!?

Maybe her kid is on the waitlist and she's trying to dissuade others

Hi all, I am the parent who posted the negative review above. This is in response to the responses made after my post. If you are part of the Communikids administration as I suspect you are (few people use a capital K for Communi”K”ids), you should be paying more attention to the parents concerns than to this board. I understand this is a business, and for that same reason Communikids administration should listen and be receptive to their "clients’” concerns. Why now? What happened? Why should we recommend a business that is not receptive to its clients?

Since you are asking I'll explain:
- Administration is not receptive to parents concerns. In fact, there are no scheduled meeting(s) throughout the year for the administration to listen to parents concerns/ideas. To make things worse, the administration is not receptive to constructive criticism.

- Communication with the administration has worsened in the last couple of months probably due to the expansion of the school and new personnel. This is a sentiment shared and voiced by several parents. In fact, a recent survey carried out by a new family showed that the #1 parent concern was communication with the administration. It is understandable that transitory periods may lead to this; however, it has been over 6 months now and no improvements have been observed in this regard.

- School does not have a dedicated outdoor play space and most classrooms do not have windows. To be fair, parents are aware of this if they visit the school before they register their kids.

- Books in the classrooms are in poor condition and in very limited numbers.

Although I have highlighted some negative aspects of this school, to be fair, there are also positive things:
- Teachers are amazing
- Classrooms are clean and organized
- If you just care about paying your monthly fee and not getting involved at all with the school, this may be a perfect fit. Please be aware that I do not mean this in a bad way.

As per the waitlist comment, it is interesting that this board doesn’t get a lot of attention in months, but as soon as a negative comment appears someone immediately posts something in defense of the school and tries to discredit negative comments (by calling them a “personal ax”…). These comments usually come in bursts of 2-3 messages in short periods of time (1-2 days or within minutes of each other). Parents, make your own conclusions….

I am a currently Communikids DC parent, and I have no problem with you (or anyone else) voicing your concerns with the school. However, besides old books and no dedicated outdoor playspace, I still cannot figure out what you're griping about. Btw, the kids use Fort Reno Park during the day, and St. Columba's playground during aftercare and my dc loves it!

So again, what exactly is your beef with the school regarding communication? What parent concerns do you have that aren't being addressed? Otherwise, it does sound as if you have a personal ax to grind.

Btw, my issue with Communikids is that they are too quick to cancel school (today notwithstanding) for any minor weather problem. They also schedule parent-teacher conferences and school events at very inconvenient times for working parents (3 pm is preferable to 9 and 10 am when you have two children to drop-off at school). See, even I don't think the school is perfect, but at least I listed my specific issues.

[Anonymous]

I'm a CommuniKids parent (and my iPad just autocorrected to give it the capital K,by the way), and the idea that there lurks some awful communication problem at the school is completely at odds with my experience. Love the school. Love the administration and staff. Are the books really not up to snuff? Kind of a weird gripe to have -never stood out as unusually old to me or anything. The playground works out just fine. I agree that kid performance days/parties could be scheduled at better times. It's a pretty great place. I respect that everyone has their own experience, but mine has been very good.

[Anonymous]

Question for current parents. Can you post what the cancellation policy is? Do they follow dc schools or opm?

[Anonymous]

Nobody knows what their policy is. This is a good example of what the parent above is describing when he/she says that there are communication issues among parents and administrators.

According to the Parent Handout, available online: "Closings and delays for the school will be announced by 6:00 a.m. on our website (www.communikids.com) and phone message at 202-363-0133."