Carmel Mountain Preschool — Local services in San Diego

2017 Update: This is my daughters second year at CMP and we are even happier then we were a year ago. Our 4 year old daughter was placed in the pre-k class and I am thrilled with the curriculum they have started teaching her. She loves school and is learning great pre academic skills. We are so happy with our choice to have her attend CMP and we cannot wait to have our younger daughter attend when she's old enough. My daughter has attended Carmel Mountain Preschool for just over a month now and our family could not be happier. She is currently in the two-year-old program and she loves everything about it. Here is what I LOVE about Carmel Mountain Preschool: The staff: When I toured the school I noticed how happy and relaxed all of the staff seemed. As a teacher myself, I found this to be hugely important because their energy is transferred to the children and if the teachers are stressed or unhappy then the children will feel that. Another thing that I loved about the school initially was how highly-qualified the teachers are. Both of my daughter’s teachers have their bachelor’s degree and they are truly passionate about their profession. They have created such a warm and loving environment within their classroom and it’s clear how much they love the children that they care for. The program: My daughter has been in daycare since she was 3 months old and I liked her previous program but the program at Carmel Mountain preschool blows them away. Juliet comes home with art and projects that I can tell she did herself and I am so proud of what I see. In her previous program all of the students’ art looked exactly the same and came home perfect… I know my two-year-old can’t perfectly paint and glue projects together and I would always wonder how much fun she was having or how much she was really learning from participating in hand-over-hand art. Something else that was really important to me in a program for my 2.5 year old daughter was the opportunity to PLAY! Kids need to play and man does she get to play! She comes home with sand in her shoes and dirt on her shorts and I just couldn’t be happier. When I ask her what she did in school today she always says, “I had fun! I played!”. Communication with parents: The communication from her teachers is incredible! They are always quick to respond to any questions I may have and about once a week they email us photos of the fun that she had that day. I LOVE getting to see photos of her having fun at school with her friends! Snack: I love that they students are fed a nutritious snack twice daily. In previous programs I had to send separate snack for my daughter because they fed the children snacks daily that were loaded with sugar (very sugary cereals, cookies, cupcakes....). They told me that sometimes she would cry because she wanted to eat what the other kids were eating and it was very frustrating for me. Now I never have to worry about that because at CMP the kids are fed healthy and yummy snacks in the morning and afternoon. I could not recommend Carmel Mountain Preschool more to anyone who is looking for a loving and play-based program. My daughter is thriving and I love feeling 100% happy with the environment that I am leaving her in for 9 hours each day. My family and I are so grateful to have found Carmel...

We never thought we’d be writing this review.

We were deeply involved CMP parents. We helped lobby for the return of their kindergarten program. We raved about the chickens, nature-based play, and emotional intelligence curriculum. For a while, it was everything we hoped for.

Until it wasn’t.

This school is great — until something goes wrong. And then, in our experience, we were left feeling that protecting the school’s image was prioritized over our child’s safety.

Our 5-year-old calmly shared something no child should have to say. He told us another child — someone he’d seemed uncomfortable around for months — had pulled his pants down multiple times. Then he said the same child told him to do disturbing things to his baby sister that no 5-year-old should even understand.

We were horrified. But we trusted CMP would know how to handle it professionally.

Instead, we were told this was “normal developmental behavior.” Someone even suggested “maybe he heard it in a rap song.”

We asked for the children to be separated during the investigation. CMP told us our only option was to take our son home.

We were told the behavior couldn’t be substantiated through video, and the school said they couldn’t share further information due to privacy restrictions. Only after another family came forward with similar concerns about the same child was that peer moved to a different class — but we were not given clarity on whether the children would still be in contact on the playground, or how that would be handled.

We were told the peer was already under “100% supervision” due to prior concerns. When we raised questions about the consistency of that supervision, we were told, “No student can be monitored 100% of the time.”

We were not told whether a mandated report had been filed, despite multiple requests. No trauma-informed support was offered to our family. No clear safety plan was made for our son.

At times, it felt like we were having to pressure the school just to follow basic safety protocol — and that’s the last thing a parent wants to feel after entrusting their child to someone’s care.

We weren’t looking for perfection. We were looking for a school that would say:

“We believe your son. We’ll do everything we can to keep him safe. Here’s the plan we’ve created.”

That never happened.

When we eventually withdrew from CMP, we received documents containing a non-disparagement and release-of-claims clause in connection with the discussion of a refund. As of today, we have not received that refund.

We’re writing this not out of anger, but out of a deep sense of responsibility. We would have wanted someone to warn us.

CMP may look beautiful on the outside — but we learned the hard way that aesthetics and philosophy don’t mean much if leadership doesn’t act when it matters most.

If you’re a parent considering CMP, ask the hard questions. Make sure the answers give you peace of mind.

We...

We love CMP! Our daughter started at CMP when she was just 18 months old. We toured several other schools and instantly fell in love with the spacious, clean, welcoming, enriching, open design and beautiful layout of the facilities at CMP. The emphasis on outdoor, play based concepts and curriculum is very unique and our daughter is very happy. We joke with each other when we see pictures of all the fun happenings in her day and wish we could be there too!

Our daughter will be three years old soon. She has been in three different classrooms at CMP and we have loved (and still love) every one of her teachers and all of the support and administrative staff as well. The teachers are not just friendly and easy to talk to, they are loving towards our daughter, interactive, engaging, nurturing and so very patient. Both, the teachers and support staff are a joy (professional, trustworthy, knowledgeable and fun)! We look forward to interacting with them.

They are great about communicating with us - daily updates in the app as well as a quick check in at pick-up /drop-off or longer ones as needed. They were the first to let us know our daughter seemed to be ready to be potty trained (at 19 months-we had no idea). They were also the first to catch on to a food allergy/sensitivity that we were not aware of.

We are truly comforted in knowing our daughter is in great hands. We might be biased but we feel the teachers and support staff absolutely adore her. It makes us so very happy when she tells us stories about them and we can see the feelings are mutual.

The staff are also very engaged and responsive to us as well if we have concerns. We've consulted with them on many occasions for how to address behavioral problems at home and it has been very helpful. Our parents (child's grandparents) help us out quite a bit with pickup and drop off and they have nothing but great things to say about their own CMP experience! CMP also makes a concentrated effort to foster a sense of community and friendship among all the families at the school through hosting various social gatherings and interactive events throughout the year.

Of course not every single day is always absolutely perfect at CMP, nothing ever is. However, in our experience the not so great moments are so far and few in between here that we cannot even recall them. While, the opposite is true about all of the great things, they are countless.

Our child is thriving here, she looks forward to going to school and she comes home very happy. She's experiencing and exposed to so many new things that we are not able to focus on at home (chicken coop, garden/farm, tinkering, etc.). She is making great friends while learning and growing through engaging in a variety of different activities that are mostly outside, in the beautiful San Diego sun. We would highly recommend this daycare to any family looking for an exceptional and unique...