It has been over 1.5 years since my last review, and we love the school as much as we did when our…read morechild started school 2+ years ago! Everyone on staff has been incredibly easy and pleasant to collaborate with, and responsive to my questions. The school expanded over the summer to add 2 more classrooms, so that Burkard now has 6 classrooms: K/1, 2/3, 4th, 5th, 6th and 7/8th. Having experienced a few private schools and a public school between my 2 kids, I am confident this is the best environment for my child, for both academic differentiation and SEL support. It's often lamented that parents have to choose the least bad educational option for their 2e kids, but I truly believe this is a great option. We were fortunate enough to be with his amazing 2/3 teachers for 2 years, and have a new set of teachers we love this year, too. Speaking with parents across grades, they also think highly of their teaching teams. My son continues to thrive academically (measured by his overall engagement, as well as MAP testing), and we are very happy with the math differentiation he receives. Each year, I have been pleased with the attention and care the staff takes to make sure he's challenged at the right level. They take great care to plan engaging lessons across ELA, science, social studies and SEL, and incorporate hands on projects regularly to extend their learning. My son regularly shares interesting facts he learned in class! Math is a subject he continues to be passionate about, so I reach out to the school annually for math acceleration. He is given math assessments at the start of each year to determine the appropriate placement, and is given the option of joining a higher level class, or doing independent study in his classroom. We opted this year to have him join the higher level math class on a modified schedule, and we are grateful for the ability to choose the right option for him. The daily SEL teaching is also very well done. Many schools don't have the ability to go in-depth with SEL, but our BT has devised fun games and exercises for the kids to put their SEL knowledge into practice. It was so sweet to hear that my son's 4th grade class taught new recess games to the K/1 class! The BT's keep a close watch throughout the day, so the students are able to learn and play in a physically and emotionally safe environment. When conflicts arise, the staff is there to help the students resolve the issue in an appropriate way. We get daily reports, and twice monthly newsletters sharing what he's learning, so I know he's receiving a high quality education. If your child is at a school that is not meeting their needs, I encourage you to tour the Burkard School. It is truly a gem of a school!

We found TBS about three years ago and it is quite surprising that there aren't more schools for…read morebright kids who have significant social & emotional challenges, including mood disorders. We unfortunately found very little real understanding and expertise along the way, moving from program to program, from school to school, in every case deeply involved with the IEP process. Then we decided to try TBS. The results have been nothing short of amazing. Our student's self-esteem and emotional intelligence started to grow from the start and has continued to grow ever since. No more calls asking us to come quickly, the benefits to our entire household have been pretty incredible, across parents, siblings, and friends alike. When your student talks to you about how the kids at school are 'just like me', when they express a sense of belonging and common purpose to thrive in the face of big emotions, you can only smile and reflect on the journey. ...and imagine what it's like for other parents to understand you, understand your child, and understand so much of the details of the journey. The TBS community, made up of students, teachers, and parents is one that sees your child as deserving, powerful, and good.

It breaks my heart to read negative reviews from parents who don't understand how Treering works…read more Treering provides all the tools needed to create a book, but ultimately the final design is a result of the team (which often includes students). Parents missing the purchase deadline and then expecting a late order to be delivered the next day is totally unrealistic as well. I've had an amazing experience with Treering for many years. I appreciate having full control over all aspects of my book- page count, cover, orders, due date, etc. Families love being able to personalize pages. Plus, we make money on the yearbook every single year. The customer service team has always been super helpful. No company is perfect, but I appreciate the efforts they go through to make things right. Unlike past experiences with other companies, I've never received a surprise bill or felt taken advantage of by deceptive practices.

Worst interface and website. Constantly has issues uploading photos and can't make it through the…read morecustom page process without it resetting and taking you back. It's literally 2026. AI could make you a better webpage in 2 minutes so why is your site garbage year after year?

If you have an anxious kid, there is absolutely no other driving teacher to consider…read more Period. Thank you for your kindness and patience

Awful human being!!…read more I paid $250 for driving lessons only to find out my younger brother was not eligible to get a driver's license based on his immigration status at the time. I immediately reached out to Shahriar Assi, the owner, and asked for a refund. But he wouldn't refund the money, even though my brother did not take a single lesson with him. I explained I had just gotten laid off and really needed the money, but every time I called him, he'd pretend he was busy and ask me to call him in the future. Eventually he refunded $100 and but that was after so many calls and after literally begging him to do the right thing... Edit: Responding to owner - yes 1000% sure it was you. I have your contact info and detail in my phone. You don't remember asking me to come to the Starbucks in Burlingame and wrote me a check for $100? You said you sympathize with the Palestinian cause and were giving me a refund when normally there is no refunds. You had me drive to Burlingame only to to be handed a check for $100 instead of the full $250. Shame on you!

This center offers three different services: Basic testing ($750 at time of writing), Individual…read moreService ($995), and Comprehensive ($1375). We selected Comprehensive because we were hoping for clear educational recommendations for our child and thought this would give us the clearest picture (which we made clear beforehand). We encountered two people through our experience with this center: Ann Smith (Gifted Councilor) and Christine Pearston (Psy.D.). Ann is very nice and our son enjoyed working with Christine, but we have some very serious issues with their service and do not recommend them. You would be much better off going with a cheaper basic service elsewhere. First, the additional personality assessment included in the Comprehensive plan is a joke. It is not based on any kind of interview with the child, but simply a parent questionnaire. We did not even discuss this reportduring the follow-up meeting. If you continue down to the next cost level, the Individual Service is only different from the Basic Testing in that they meet with you afterwards to discuss the results. From our discussion with them, most of the time was spent just discussing what the individual elements of the IQ test mean, and this was pretty self-explanatory from the report given. Any other information provided can be found online. The most troublesome and frustrating part of this experience is that we basically ended up with nothing at the end. Rewinding a bit, in our initial discussion with Ann, she was making suggestions on which test to give our son and threw out the name "WISC-V". We have no idea what this, and she offered no explanation or warning, so we Googled it and found a handful of example questions (about 5 questions total). We showed our son to see how he would react, and he seemed fine, so we went ahead and scheduled the test. During the test, our son told Christine that he saw questions like this before and asked me about it. I told her the above and send her the link I found. She said it was fine, but when we received the report, she included a section basically saying the test is invalid, specifically including the line "It was shared that he engaged in preparatory behaviors including practice questions from an online source." I explained to them multiple times that this line is very exaggerated and not true. They repeatedly told me they believe me, but would not change it. I also felt they were very misleading when speaking with them about the actual validity of the test, due to this line. Essentially, do not purchase anything but the Basic Assessment as this center. And if you are purchasing just a basic assessment, there are cheaper alternatives out there. These people seem very nice, but they do not adequately prepare you for the test and you may end up needing to go someplace else, anyway.

Lisa and Brad are top-rate professionals. We were very pleased with the quality of their…read moreassessment services. They also did a great job of following up and providing useful advice.

Future Valley is at it again even though we spoke about this and they promised never to do it…read moreagain. Another driver is blocking the same driveway, the van is completely blocking the driveway if the home of an elderly woman. The front bumper is also in a red zone. He was parked here when I arrived and still there 15 minutes later when I left. Do better Future Valley!

This is a review for the school day craft camp and summer music camp that my son went. He is a huge…read morefan of the camps. He learnt several Chinese songs (with some dance moves) and English songs from the music camp, played Ukulele and went to parks to have lunch. He also got himself a playdate from the camp (he is not even 4). The best part he claimed is they have a play area downstairs that they are allowed to be bare feet and no one push him to take a nap. Because of his normal school does not allow bare feet and nap is required, he always talks about the camp now and wants to go back to the camp soon. Thank you, Future Valley for my kiddo to have a great summer time.

All I'm gonna say that CLASS has been a part of My kids life…read morefor almost 3 years now. They are amazing.

I was unfortunately referred to class by easter seals, I can't review the therapy itself because…read moreafter waiting nearly two months they emailed me (only because I called to see what was going on) saying my provider was leaving class. My issue with class is that they wasted nearly two months of my time but most importantly valuable time that my son could have been receiving therapy elsewhere! They were very unprofessional handling my sons therapy and were not at all interested in his well being!!! After talking to someone who told me she would email me a proposed schedule for my sons therapy ASAP I waited patiently nearly two weeks until calling to see what was the hold up. I left a voicemail and a few minutes later I got an email saying the provider in my area was leaving class. Not only did I have to call for answers but she did not even have the decency to call me back instead she just emailed me! If I had not called who knows how long I might have kept waiting. Don't waste your time with class go elsewhere!

This is the second year my son (10 years old) has been in the program. Before he started the after…read moreschool program, which runs 2-3 hours each day 3 days a week, we used to cut school/work on certain Fridays to go skiing and snowboarding. Now that he is in the program, he never wants to miss school and I have to wait till the weekend to ski and snowboard with him :-(

The program component being reviewed is the mandarin class that comes to the school providing an…read moreafterschool program. It is okay to good. The ability to learn a foreign language is needed more than 1x a week and this institute needs to push the public schools more to bring them in more days per week. The material provided is ok, but not always relevant to building a language foundation. The best part is the accompanying CD which sounds out the words. The teacher we experienced is nice, runs the entire lesson in mandarin and works well with the kids. Class size is very small -- a bonus.

I ordered a book I needed for US History at SLCC online from this company. Not only was the quality…read moreof the website poor, but the lag while trying to read it was worse. I have topnotch internet and bandwidth. It is not a problem on my end. I tried to resolve my issues with coursesmart, including a refund - which was within the deadline timeframe-but I was just "passed" from one person to another. All stating I will need to escalate your "ticket". It was the worst customer service! I will may twice as much money, at the college, for my book before I buy anything from this company again. *******edit 9/24/2010 The customer service manager contacted me after seeing this post and asked me to reply back with an email address to allow the opportunity to view the "tickets'. I receieved a refund the very next morning. I did not get a reply back from this person, but atleast a manager was aknowledging that I was not happy and appeared to want to resolve it. Thank you. I am still not sure I would want to deal with this company again but validation can go a long way.

First experience and it was BAD. So I was looking for an…read moreeBook online and I ran into CourseSmart which seemed to be good at first, but quite the contrary. I was looking online for my business book to see if there were any editions of the book with supplemental materials or online exercises and I thought I found it, but it was not, which I later found out. It was the eBook with the "MyBizLab". After purchasing the book it turns out that I could not access the book because this type of eBook is only used for classes that do the classes online. This information was not listed whatsoever in their description of the product page, which I made very clear to them over the phone. The reason why I believed it cost a bit more than the regular edition was because it had supplemental materials. Well, the only way I could access the eBook was by having a course code, which an instructor teaching the class would be able to provide. My teacher isn't teaching the class online, so you can see how this is a problem for me. I requested a refund and told them the aforementioned, but they refused to give me a refund. What bothered me the most was that I was never able to input the code to gain access to the eBook in the first place. I do not have a reasonable explanation for why they would not issue me a refund. Total waste of money! Note: PLEASE READ The iOS and Android versions of the CourseSmart app are not very good. And I'm not just saying this because of my frustration. I tested the app before knowing I didn't have acces to the book. I had not even logged into my account and the app was all ready jittery and force closing. This app is not updated frequently and is a hassle to use offline from what other online reviews mentioned. Tip: Order all ebooks through the Amazon Kindle store. The delivery is instant to your iPad or other tablet and most, if not all ebooks have a full free tiral version of the book. It's a nice quality app, fluid, stable and the books are all accessible offline. Because its Amazon, they are always keeping the app up to date. If you want to avoid a pain in the arse, save money, and bad customer service go to Amazon. Even if it's a little more expensive, which is hardly ever the case, you'll be happy with your ebook purchase or rent. Trust me.

Dr. Sachdev is probably one of the most skilled and ethical dentists I've ever met. As a young…read moredentist he is the first person I call anytime I have questions, he has taught me more than I can ever repay him for. Having said that, I am more than impressed with the dental assistants he is training. I would recommend all of his dental assistants he's trained so far. Our dental office is very greatful to MDS for this essential service MDS is proving for the thr dental community.

Dr. Deepak Sachdev and his team are just phenomenal. I have known of this dental practice for years…read moreand just learned of the dental assisting academy from some of the recent graduates. I went to their open house and was able to learn more about the modern dental technologies they are using and how they train students to understand their roles so they move on to successful careers. It's a beautiful location and learning environment. So happy they are a resource in our area!

My daughter attended Challenge School for one year from 2 to 3 yrs old (from Caterpillar to Ladybug…read moreclass). From the very first day, the teachers and staff have shown incredible love, patience, and dedication to the kids. My daughter looked forward to going to school every day, and we can see how happy she is and how much she has developed both academically and socially. The curriculum with the mandarin immersion and a variety of cultural celebrations are another highlight. We are incredibly grateful to all the teachers for making her such a positive and meaningful pre-school experience. We highly recommend Challenge school San Mateo Campus to any parent looking for a place where their child will be loved, supported, and inspired to learn. We have to say goodbye due to the relocation, but will always remember the warmth and love at Challenge. Thank you for making the preschool feel like a second home.

We were looking for a mandarin immersion program and toured a few options in the Peninsula area. In…read morethe end, we chose Challenge School for their efforts in maintaining accreditation (NAEYC and WASC), their balanced curriculum, the friendly environment, and good experiences from other parents. From the tour, the facility felt clean, safe and I felt comfortable with the staff as they seemed attentive, experienced, and committed. At first I was nervous to transition my oldest (2 yrs old at the time, now 3.5 yrs) as we don't speak any mandarin at home. However we were so surprised at how much he has learned and developed as he transitioned from Caterpillar to Ladybug and now to Butterfly Class. He is always excited to head to preschool and happily talks about his day after pick-up. The projects and activities in each class are age appropriate and meaningful and I appreciate how we get frequent updates with clear communication from the teachers in each class. I also love that they prepare Chinese and American holiday events at this age. Now our youngest (1.5 yrs old) started in the Caterpillar class and she has adjusted so well! I am so glad we chose to have our kids attend Challenge School for the peace of mind knowing that they're in great care while we are at work. All of the Caterpillar, Ladybug, and Butterfly teachers are wonderful, dedicated, and sincere with their class and most importantly, we can tell our kids have fun and are happy there. I highly recommend this location for a mandarin immersion preschool!