Our daughter was a founding student at Modern Schoolhouse in Eagle Rock. She attended TMS from when…read moreshe was 18 months until she graduated as a 4-year-old (when our family moved from LA to Denver). It's difficult to capture the gratitude and appreciation we have for Sue and her team in words. Modern Schoolhouse was an integral, joyful part of our family's life for several years. The teachers expertly crafted a safe, nurturing, and rigorous environment that provided a strong foundation for our daughter to blossom and grow. I feel like we will always look back on our enrollment at Modern Schoolhouse as one of the best parenting decisions we've ever made. A few things stand out about TMS: CURRICULUM - Our daughter was enrolled in full-time childcare for a year prior to Modern Schoolhouse. However, it was unclear whether her previous caregivers were working toward any kind of goal (e.g., Kindergarten readiness) or if she was learning anything. That changed the instant we enrolled at TMS. I remember feeling skeptical when Sue asked us to purchase a special pack of flashcards. However, a few months later our 1.5 year-old daughter was recognizing the alphabet and making letter sounds at home. We were legitimately shocked! Preschool years are so important for kids to develop foundational skills and get broad exposure to different topics. Modern Schoolhouse delivers a learning experience that feels ambitious, but not forced. Our daughter was always engaged with the current unit (e.g., marine life, camping, etc.) and excited to go to school. That is the best feeling as a parent! The regular assessments and parent/teacher conferences helped us understand her progress and make a smooth transition to our new school in Colorado. CARE - At the same time that preschool aged children are exploring new academic concepts, they're also learning how to interact and play with other children. Modern Schoolhouse does such an excellent job helping their students communicate, manage their emotions, and engage with their classmates. At TMS our daughter learned things like how to ask for space and differentiate between good vs. bad choices. Teacher/staff transitions are inevitable and unavoidable in early childhood learning. What stood out to us about TMS was the quality and consistency of the team over the years and across classrooms. The teachers at Modern Schoolhouse helped us through the various ups and downs of life with a toddler and major transitions like potty training. Now that we're no longer enrolled at TMS, we're realizing that we took for granted how proactive and responsive the teachers were with their communication. The "ouch reports" from the playground, the quick responses to questions, it's all so important for parents - especially if this is your first childcare experience. COMMUNITY - Lastly, I want to highlight the broader Modern Schoolhouse community. Our daughter became very close with several other girls in her classroom and over time we became friends with their parents as well. TMS families are diverse, kind, and welcoming. I appreciated the music day potluck, annual art show, graduation, and the various other ways that Modern Schoolhouse brought everyone together to celebrate the students. Thank you Modern Schoolhouse! We will forever be grateful to you for the positive impact you had on our family.

We learned early on how incredibly important and foundational the learning ages of 2-5 were going…read moreto be for our son's growth. Until the age of two, we were able to nurture his love of creativity through art, get him engaged in reading and music, and keep him active and independent while learning at home, but his social-emotional growth needed a community like Modern Schoolhouse to truly develop. We met another family at his favorite playground that had an AMAZING experience at Modern Schoolhouse and their daughter, who was academically gifted and raised with similar philosophies, was thriving under their care. We enrolled and discovered for ourselves that Modern Schoolhouse was indeed an absolute gem for child development. Our son entered after turning two, and he was very shy/reserved at the time. The talking, dancing, singing, bilingual artist that blew us away with his funny ideas and love of learning at home, needed help expressing himself in the larger group. Over the next several years, Leonardo was able to grow and thrive his ability to emotionally self-regulate, from having a 'safe space' at home to being able to identify what he was feeling and how to 'calm his body,' to listening to others and respecting common space. What we didn't anticipate was not just the top quality of the school, the clean aesthetic spaces, and the exceptional teachers (Teacher Alicia from class 3 was truly amazing!!), but also the like minded and kind community that became a key part of our son's social life. During our son's first years at home, we studied Montessori, Waldorf, and Reggio Emilia- instituting some principles of each in our approach at home. It wasn't until we met Sue and her philosophies at Modern Schoolhouse did we see some of these same philosophies embodied in an American child care setting; and we must have interviewed or toured at 5 or more local schools before finding Modern Schoolhouse. The core beliefs consist of the idea that children are competent, capable, curious individuals with hundreds of ways of self expression. The role of the school and family should be creating a structured, clean, and aesthetic environment that is conducive stimulating exploration and discovery. Teachers in this sense guide and foster collaboration rather than just 'delivering information.' Giving our son a new challenge was hard at first, but Sue and her staff were quick to offer suggestions and outside resources so we could reinforce some lessons at home, especially around his development of social/emotional skills like managing anger, dealing with disappointment, and learning to communicate when he needed space. He also was given the chance to learn how to build relationships and have positive interactions with new friends. Each 'season' and month had different themes that would be clearly delivered in monthly/quarterly emails along with chances to meet with teachers on child progress in key development areas of language, tracing, use of scissors, how to put on shoes/jackets, counting, class participation/listening, and emotional self expression. By class 3 (3 years old and above), our son was giving 'show and tell' presentations, using the 'sharing bee' to discuss their weekend, and playing inventive games to stimulate imagination and curiosity. Through the use of brightwheel, we were always shown photos and videos of our son having fun with friends and doing some fun activity. The school also offered many events at the school such as the "annual art show," "parent and me" day, and music sessions from Teacher Gaia culminating in a student led music performance (the cutest!). This year all the 4 classes made their own animal costumes and acted out various Disney themes. It was extraordinary to see him flourish and thrive under Teacher Alicia in class 3, who is truly remarkable for her ability to connect to kids and meet them where they are on the journey. By the end he was more confident in his presentations and even singing his favorite Disney songs Karaoke style to the class! Everything ended on a wonderful note with his graduation and small speech to parents and the graduating class. We were given an opportunity for a graduation photoshoot and his 'family book' with messages from all of the teachers as a keepsake that he created during his time there. As he graduated before many of the others in class 3, everyone created a special hand painted art for him with with the handprints of all his friends. It is bittersweet to go onto the next chapter, but he graduated school scoring high in every single metric of development, and he easily was interviewed and accepted into an international private school. Thanks you for being such a key part of his childhood journey and we hope to stay in touch with Leonardo and our growing family!

My son attended this daycare at age 9 months in 2021 through age 4, of August of 2025. Ms. Helen…read moreis an incredibly awesome teacher very patient, caring and understanding. Helped my son transition to the learning environment he was about to experience Pre-TK. the staff all very supportive best daycare that we could have encountered. They assist with payment options as well.

We attended for 2 years and through the pandemic. It's a great day care and school. Ms Helen is the…read morebest! It's no frills and not pretentious. We switched to a school up the street before kindergarten and ultimately kinda regret my decision, the grass isn't always greener. Just because a school has a long waitlist doesn't mean it's good....

We LOVE Highland Park Montessori! The director is awesome and you can tell that she TRULY cares…read moreabout what Montessori means. Her passion for making sure the students excell will blow your mind. -- When she shared her experience in running other Montessori schools in New York we just knew that we were in the right place. We receive so much more than any other school we've looked into. Our child is excited to go to preschool every day and we can tell she's learning so much. So happy to have found them.

Here's what I can say about Lilo and her style of teaching:…read more She leads with love and respect for the child, always. Our son learned from her for almost two years and her patience, support and belief in him allowed him to grow exponentially in that time. She is consistently creative with her lessons, incorporating art, music, and yoga, which we loved seeing our son incorporate into his non school time activities. He has used the breath work he learned from Lilo to calm himself down during moments when it is needed. He has even taught us to take a moment to collect ourselves! That is because of Lilo. Lilo takes the time to get to know a child and will incorporate their passions into lesson plans. Our son loves trains and train lines, so she worked with him on his writing and spelling by allowing him to create a train line using the words he wanted to learn. She is incredibly creative and in tune with every child. No one size fits all approach with her! We appreciate how level headed Lilo is when dealing with children and the emotions that they have. She is patient and allows for a safe, loving space to work through what those emotions are and at the end of the day she understands that each child is working through things on their own timeline. She expects respect and love from children (as that's what she leads with), but ultimately is realistic with expectations. Children are children and her chill is infectious. Lilo creates a safe, loving environment that allows for children to flourish. If our son didn't have to grow up we would be with Lilo until the end of time!

To add clarity the events in this review were experienced by EVERYONE in our group for over a year…read more Many of our fellow parents unenrolled as a result of these events. As class parents we heard the concerns of the remaining parents in our class and voiced our collective concerns, only to be met with retribution from the owner. That being said, If you would like your children to go to a facility where the owner is okay with your child sleeping on a carpet that smells like a casino floor this place is for you. I was debating not writing anything but after spending time at other day cares in the area that take cleanliness and consistency seriously I had to share my experience. We spent over a year at this location with our toddler and during the one year there we experienced a HFM out break that impacted the entire class, yes the entire class was out for weeks. When one child would return even with no others present they somehow would contract the virus, we cited cleanliness concerns that were not addressed. We loved our first teacher unforunately she left after two months, from then on our experience with the leads was a merry go round of turn over during the time there. Every day we wouldn't be sure if our lead would be present, on leave or fired. Turnover is a huge issue here. Once, all of the parents spent a half hour at the gate locked out of the school when we were trying to pick up our children at the end of the day. They could not find their spare key so the children were trapped inside. And lastly after our families were all devastated by the fires, this location opened with a ventilation system that had not been professionally cleaned and carpets that smelled like smoke for weeks. They did not take their role in the recovery process seriously. If leadership, consistency, cleanliness and communication are important to you I would say DDP ranks low on the list of options in pasadena. There are better options down the street.

Our son went to discovery days preschool from July of 2021- May of 2025. We had a wonderful…read moreexperience here especially in the TK (sequoia) classroom. There are a lot of great enrichment activities available for a fee (karate, yoga, dance, soccer, theatre to name a few) on campus. They have state of the art facilities and great teacher to student ratios. They also have a woman who comes in periodically to teach social emotional learning classes (SEL) and supports students one on one if needed for an extra fee. We were extremely satisfied with our experience here, the only negative for us in the earlier years was the high teacher turnover- which seems to be a problem in a lot of preschool environments. All in all though, Discovery Days fostered a very welcoming and positive environment. Our son is absolutely ready for kindergarten socially and academically.

What a special spot. We get to know the kiddos here and the parents know our kiddos. I trust…read moreeveryone here with caring for them and a co-op is a unique experience. Hard work and lots of love go into it. Gentle parenting with a dope group of peeps? Sign me up!

This a a we're-trying-too-hard-to-be-hippies and reminds you of the snobbery & exclusionary BS of…read moremiddle school. Oh joy. The good points include the kids are exclusively outside (until it rains, which it does in LA), the variety of toys & the fact that parents, while working there, get to know each other. The bad is unfortunately pretty far-reaching: (1) they don't believe in saying sorry or having the kids say sorry for intentionally or unintentionally hurting another child. It's great to correct the action, but you should also back it up with an apology--this is meaningful to most people, just saying. (2) They don't administer sunscreen to kids, which wears off after 1-2 hrs, so you have to worry that your child is getting harmful UV-A & B exposure early on in life, and whole preschool is outdoors. (3)***They discriminate against any child that's a little different (our first child was shy) , which is cruel & horrid--the ADULT TEACHERS do this. Not everyone Is born a raging extrovert. Imagine what kind of modeling this does--the discrimination of others at such a young age-- to the children. The modeling of cruel behavior. Horrible. (4) They have no structure--they try so hard to be "yes people" & hippie-whatever at the expense of giving young souls the much needed structure they crave. Kids need a balance of both unadulterated freedom at this tender age, and structure. There is very little to no structure at the garden. (5) there's no where for the kids to go inside during inclement weather. Guess they didn't think about that... because of course it never rains in LA (facepalm) (6) the owner's whack. Just saying (7) there is ZERO parking for parents on their work day A wonderful Preschool we found, while a little pricier, is sooo worth it--La Cañada Preschool. Phenomenal. Incredible, dedicated staff, the most wonderful head of school ever, Debbie Ficarra, the preschool is a converted, welcoming home with a joyful backyard for play... my 3 kids have LOVED this school!!!

I was very nervous about sending my son to daycare because my older children were looked after by…read moremy family. I have a hard time trusting others with my children, but sending my son to Room to Bloom was the best decision we made for him. He started when he was 19 months old in 2021 and he stayed until he was old enough to go to Kindergarten. Ms. Celine, a former public school teacher, told me that she would treat my son as if he was her own and she kept her promise. My son loved going to school and was always happy when we picked him up. She chooses her staff carefully and we love the teachers at Room to Bloom. They are kind, energetic, nurturing, and patient. The curriculum is so well thought out and my child learned different themes every couple of weeks. I love that my son wasn't just going somewhere for the day where the teachers just simply watched him. He was taught so much during his time at this school. In the 4 years that he was at Room to Bloom, my son learned how to read, do math, write, cut, glue, put on his shoes and clothes, wipe after using the restroom, and so much more. Because my son was very interested in math and reading, the teachers individualized instruction to meet his needs, even so far as doing multiplication/division/reading comprehension with him. I was hoping Ms Celine and the teachers at Room to Bloom would prepare him for Kindergarten, but he learned so much that he can honestly just sleep through K and be just fine. This school is the perfect balance of play and learning. I really can't believe how much little kids can learn when given the opportunity. They also teach kids about good character as well as social emotional learning. Ms Celine sends photos to parents at the end of the day as well as a summary of the activities for the day. If you choose to purchase lunch, your child will eat nutritious and delicious home cooked meals. There are fun events that parents can attend like a winter holiday performance as well as a Mother's Day and Father's Day celebration. The teachers go to great lengths to make children feel very special on their birthdays as well. I am very happy with Room to Bloom and can't imagine going anywhere else. My older kids went to local South Pasadena preschools, but if Room to Bloom was around when they were young, I would have absolutely sent them there instead.

We transitioned our kids from nanny care to Room to Bloom for 2 years (pre-preschool and…read morepre-school) and it was great for our kids and family. Unlike some other preschools, they focus on education not just childcare, and my kids were well prepared for kindergarten at Valentine Elementary because of what they learned at Room to Bloom. The interior facilities are well maintained, and lots of toys to choose from both inside and outside. All of the kids are generally well behaved, and the teachers employ a gentle but appropriately firm approach to discipline. Their teachers are kind and patient with the kids, and the food they provide for lunch is totally worth the small added cost. My kids still say that Ms. Celine's meals are better than mommy and daddy's - d'oh! Although they are now in 1st grade, we still send our kids to Room to Bloom for their monthly "Date Night Out" so mommy and daddy can have some me time!

My family is back at Rose Scharlin for my second child. It has been a truly wonderful experience to…read morebe back on the yard, but with an entirely new group of children and families. My youngest is genuinely obsessed with school and would go there every day if she could. My oldest is going into 4th grade this year and her elementary school consistently has high praise for her social/emotional skills, which I largely attribute to her time at Rose Scharlin.

This preschool has been such a wonderful place for our little one to grow up in. The large outdoor…read morespace is extremely inviting with its garden, outdoor kitchen, sand boxes, climbing structures, and chickens! We most of all appreciate the parent investment and involvement in the community. The director and Ms. Wendy are a phenomenal team that provide a creative hands on learning approach. From nature walks to painting and yoga to dance parties, it's been such a gift.

A few weeks ago, I was researching Montessori programs near my parents' house (where my daughter…read morespends most of her time while I'm at work) and I reached out by phone to inquire about their program, hours, and tuition. The person who answered, likely the director, was noticeably rude right from the beginning. She interrupted me almost immediately, with irritation. I felt I was inconveniencing her by asking standard questions about the school. I tried to wrap up politely, thanked her for her time, and she ended the call without a goodbye; she just hung up on me. What a blatant disrespect for potential enrollment prospects. Get somebody else on the phones if all you're concerned about is getting off of it. First impressions carry significant weight when choosing a place for your child to spend their days. After that interaction, I have ZERO interest in pursuing Eagle Rock Montessori further, and I would never allow my child to be taught by such a person with ZERO respect for parents on the outside. As they say, the fish rots from the head. 1 star is one too many for this place. Check out Montessori Children's World, with much better people skills, and somewhere you'd be proud to send your child.

We love this school! All the teachers on staff are caring. The school itself is organized. They…read moremake an effort to bring all the parents together in activities with the children a few times a year, which is nice. The kids learn some baking which I think is super cool. During Thanksgiving they prepare (kids/teachers) prepare dessert for their Thanksgiving School Meal. It is an extra special touch. We love it!