We have had two kids and four total years with the POTA team, and have been extremely happy with…read morethe community, level of learning, methodolody for education, and overall progress we have seen in our kids. Our first spent three years there and each year took more and more interest in understanding how to learn as much as what to learn. She made good friends, became more independent, and was well prepared to enter a larger classroom for Kindergarden. Our youngest, in his first year there, jumps out of the stroller every morning to tell his teachers something new from the previous night. We see him on a similar path to our daughter, and are excited to watch him continue creating his own path. POTA is a great combination of cultural and educational learning. We were slightly concerned there would be too much religious emphasis, which was different from how we grew up, but that has not been the case. Their focus is on the meaning of those cultural learnings and less about the religious definitions.

My 3 year old son was new to preschool and so were we. POTA at Cooper Square was incredible in…read morehelping us adjust to the environment and schedule. We started out slow and transitioned him to full time as the first year progressed, and opted to keep him in this amazing program for pre-K even after universal pre-K became available. After 2 years, I am confident he will do smashingly in kindergarten. I have nothing but great things to say about the warm attentive staff and director.

My daughter started attending First Steps Academy when she was just over four months old. She's…read moreturning eight months old next week so I think we have been there long enough to write a review. I absolutely love the daycare. The staffs and teachers are always so friendly and warm. The teachers at the infant class are very patient and attend to the needs of each baby. For a first time mom, this is extremely important (it's not easy to entrust anyone with my daughter at the beginning). In addition to attend to the babies' basic needs, they also exposed the babies with arts, music and other activities to stimulate their development. Overall, we are very pleased with First Steps.

My 3 yr old son has been attending this school since December and I couldn't be happier! The staff…read moreis caring, compassionate and hard working. The school is brand new and is a clean, safe and orderly environment that I feel very comfortable leaving my child in. The kids love each other and the teachers. They go on daily outings to the park, library and local shops to learn about the community. My child is happy going to school every day and is constantly talking about what he's learning that week (weather, colors, seasons, letters,...) or what adventure he's been on with his friends. I also feel a sense of family from the staff as well as the other parents. This is a very sweet school that all parents of young children should know about! I highly recommend First Steps on Clinton.

My daughter went to Building Bridges for two years and it was truly special for all of us. She…read morestill raves about her friends, trips, staff, and teachers. Miss Sue and Miss Jennifer were always available to talk about anything and you could tell really cared for all of the kids. The kids really loved them back as well. We still hear from them from time to time, and when our youngest is ready, we know we have a great place to send him.

It's been weeks now since I pulled my son out of this preschool. Everyone else seems to have no…read moreissues with it. They love the school and they love the co-principals. Said their kid/s were enjoying themselves. From day one, I received a cold treatment from a co-principal. Never did nothing to her, she just didn't speak to me or had eye contact. I thought I was being sensitive and decided to give it time of course. Day two I asked her a question during pickup and she snapped at me. She's nervous during pickup as the space is small and security wise it makes her antsy. But moments after, I hear her speaking nicely with another mom ..just chatting. After many pickups etc, I decided it was too negative for my life. She was ignoring me and that affected my life and my son's. If it helps, we are a same-sex family. But who knows why she treated me that way. Just wanted to shed some light on this preschool that has nothing but amazing reviews. The other co-principal is nice to me just for the record. Lost my year tuition of $7000+ due to non-refundable contract signed. FYI I'm sure your experience will be fine. Just wanted to mention not everyone had a good time !

Our experience with this preschool, was absolutely amazing and exceeded all our expectations! We…read moresaw ,firsthand, the positive impact it had on my nephew. From the first weeks, the teachers made a genuine effort to support his adjustment, keeping us , thoroughly informed and ensuring he felt secure and always included. That level of communication and Genuine care made a big difference for our family. Their classroom environment is very structured, organized, and welcoming. It is a setup, where the students, are not overly stimulated and they keep it simple, but, yet, very relaxed and productive! Smart Starts Academy has a curriculum , in which, encourages learning through, play while building important social and academic skills. Over time, we noticed improvements in his confidence, language skills, and enthusiasm for learning, which speaks volumes about the quality of instruction and Attentiveness to each student in their classroom! Emotions that each child may carry ,throughout their day, was Never ignored , but rather, very respected and handled with Extreme care and Genuine Understanding! The staff is beyond,professional, attentive, and Deeply committed to each child's development and learning journey! This preschool sets a HIGH standard for early education, and we would confidently recommend it to any family seeking a program that combines strong academics with Genuine care. Furthermore, the fact that, the students are to wear a uniform, distinctively separates, from other schools,especially because, the students are grasping the idea that, "we are going to school" and it clearly shows the difference between all other schools in the area. I absolutely RECOMMEND Smart Starts Academy and it will Not disappoint! The Smart Start Academy is a Great School for each child's first major steps in Learning and socially engaging in Healthy and Sustainable Growth and Development!

Our 3year old has attended Smart Start Academy (SSA Lumbar House) in Jersey City for almost a year…read more We are so happy with the facility, staff and overall program. 1) Love the mandatory uniform. She associates her uniform with "going to school", which is a great visual prompt to get us ready & out the door each day. 2) The administration and staff are so helpful & have been extra accommodating to her special needs. There is a great curriculum including an introduction to Spanish language skills & preschool preparation (tracing letters, using glue sticks & scissors, etc) . It's truly like a school rather than just a daycare facility. She loves her teachers Mrs Ruth & Miss Justine :) 3) The tech used by the facility is great. The app lets us check her in & out for the day with ease. We get information and photo updates throughout the day. 3) Food is healthy and our picky eater never goes hungry.

Smarter Toddler is so cool! My niece loves it. At first she was very shy but the teachers and…read moredirector made her feel very comfortable. So now she is really confident and outgoing!

Smarter Toddler is the best. The staff is amazing and very caring. I always feel very comfortable…read moreleaving my LO at Smarter Toddler. The place is very clean and I love how well they look after each and every child. Activities such as baby yoga, music and art is such an amazing bonus. I look forward to receiving photos from LO's weekly activities every week. Sadly, we are relocating to Atlanta and will have to find a new day care. The Smarter Toddler experience definitely set a high standard.

I was a Director of Preschool of America from September 2018 to August 2019. At the time I was a…read morePre-K 4 teacher in North Bergen NJ. A Beautiful preschool walking distance to the Hudson River. With a masters degree In Elementary education and 15years of teaching Early Childhood Education - 2, 3 and 4 year olds, I looked forward to this new opportunity. Poorly maintained by owner of building and super. Poor relationship between owner of building and Joanna owner of this preschool - which by the way is now named metrokids. Don't let the new name and branding fool you!!! In 2019, , Unsafe front door entrance, elevator consistently not working, check legalities/ infants on second floor . Challenging to get children safely out of Building God forbid there was an emergency. Also No cleaning staff to come In at night or on weekends for deep cleaning. Perhaps now with children returning to daycare the owner properly addressed issues and children have a state of the art preschool to return to in a 21st century Chelsea location. I doubt it though. Parents were paying 2000 a month. So I'll recap unsafe and unsanitary. The Director and teachers are the parents sounding board but ultimately owners responsibility. Also teachers - the true reason daycares and preschools survive- three wonderful teachers and a wonderful assistant teacher during my tenure there. When I say wonderful I mean educated kind intelligent and well maintained class rooms. One thank goodness has been called back after schools started opening again. It was challenging to be able to give good teachers and assistants raises because often raises were based on making sure a teacher had the "right" degree or coursework to merit the cheap pay raises. Across the board cheap raise once a year. My review is not based on"sour grapes". It's for "pulling back the curtain" for unsuspecting parents.

Wow, we had such a great experience at Preschool of America! They helped us out of a very serious…read moresituation, where our son's daycare closed suddenly. They took us in and were so considerate of our situation while we figured out our long-term solution. On the administrative side, Stephanie is a wonderful and responsible director. On the academic side, the teachers and students welcomed our son with warmth and made him feel at home, helping him to make a quick adjustment to the new environment. There were so many things that we loved about POA that our previous daycare didn't do. They send daily photos of what the kids are up to through a secure mobile app, so you feel more connected. They provide daily report cards for every student, listing out activities, learning progress and behavior. They use a lot of music and physical interactivity to enhance the learning process. Their catered lunches were also high quality and diverse. When we were researching daycare options, I recall reading a few bad comments which caused me some concern, so I really wanted to address the inaccurate comments in my review of POA. First of all, the environment is very clean and brightly lit, with children's artwork all over the place. Each room has windows allowing natural sunlight to come in. Most of the classrooms and gym are on the outer edge of the building with direct sun. Two of the classrooms for the very young children/babies were on the interior, but with windows facing the outside windows and direct views outside. The children at that age are still crawling or too small to see out the windows anyway. This seems to be a common practice, and was how our previous daycare was designed as well. When our previous daycare shut down, we learned a lot about the economics of what it takes to run a daycare versus what you pay. We tried getting together with 3 or 4 other families to share the cost of a private teacher, and traded off using our apartments to house them. However, it became clear very quickly that it would not only be much more expensive than daycare, but the learning environment wasn't nearly as good. The typical daycare costs of around two thousand dollars per month originally seemed like a lot to us as new parents, but if you do the math of how long they are watching your child, it breaks down to around $7.50 per hour. That's less than minimum wage, and when you factor in the lunches, diapers, activity supplies, etc that are included, there is no way you could ever match that. After a month, our previous daycare re-opened and is was an EXTREMELY difficult decision to make about which one to choose long-term. Ultimately, our son missed his friends too much, and the location at our previous place was a half mile closer, so we ended up going back. However, we also would have been quite happy to stay at POE as his permanent daycare. So to sum it up, we highly recommend Preschool of America!

When we saw the combination of the space and the teachers, we were over the moon. Old First has a…read morehuge classroom, a huge indoor play space (replete with indoor jungle gym), and a big backyard! There are swings and a playscape in the backyard, as well as a garden! The teachers are so creative and engaging, my daughter never wants to leave school. One day she comes home talking about the painting projects, the next day she breaks into the songs she has learned, another day she talks me through the process of tilling the ground and planting seeds -- turns out they had spent a couple days tilling the ground and planting grass in the backyard. This school encourages a sense of independence and inquisitiveness in its students, and has engaged and delighted my daughter since day 1. It is a truly refreshing and unique find in the otherwise daunting world of Brooklyn preschools.

We sent both our kids to this school and they both had amazing experiences, as did we (this being a…read moreparent-run cooperative.) As others have mentioned, the teachers are great -- and that has been true even with staff changes over the years. The space is extraordinary - there is no other pre-school in Brooklyn that has has a nicer space - worth it for that alone! The school continues its 50-year tradition of progressive education. Your kids won't be saddled with pre-this&that, but will actively develop executive function skills and learn how to function in a school setting. Best of all, they will learn to love school and will look forward to every day at OFNS. OFNS kids generally do very well when they move on to kindergarten. As a parent-run cooperative, parents are much more involved with the school and each other than is probably typical. While the annual Christmas tree sale shifts may be tiring, they are also a great bonding experience, and a lot of fun. Old First Nursery School is one of those things that makes Brooklyn special!

Cannot recommend Leap-ei highly enough! Our daughter participated in their morning program and had…read morea fantastic experience. We saw incredible gains in her development, especially speech and social skills, thanks to their amazing teaching staff. I loved their emphasis on play and positive reinforcement, and was awed by Romina and the teaching staff's incredible attunement to each child's unique needs. It was a huge relief to find a place where we felt safe leaving our child, knowing they're in good hands and getting the stimulation they so need to grow and learn. The director, Romina, is lovely, patient and a true support for child and families alike. She and our daughter's other teachers helped us advocate for supports and gave us really useful advice for supporting her at home. We are so grateful to have found Leap and for the solid educational and social foundation our daughter graduated with. Will definitely be back for enrichment and summer programming!

We absolutely love Leap-ei. We were looking for something for our daughter to begin interacting…read morewith other children which would help her transition into PreK in a "learn through play" setting and we were fortunate enough to stumble across Leap-ei. There are different class options including a Sensory Motor session, Spanish session, and even new fun options like Zumbini. Ms. Romina and Ms. Olga are wonderful with our daughter and being as cautious as we were, we feel comfortable knowing our daughter is in good hands while also having the option to stay and observe. Ms. Romina's patience is unparalleled and her genuine and friendly nature make you feel like family. We are so grateful so have found Leap-ei and will keep bringing our daughter here for as long as possible.