Lake Merritt Child Care Center

The cost for the preschool M-F, 8-5:30 is $1650. This includes all meals and snacks but does not include a diaper fee for kids who are not potty trained. This is significantly more than two comparable schools in the neighborhood. This preschool is exceptionally clean. The facility is new, kids step on two disinfecting mats with their shoes when they enter and each kid has a little bin of toys for table play that I think gets washed if not daily, regularly. The staff is caring and warm. Most speak Cantonese as their primarily language. The teachers all speak English as well. The kids get 30 min of instruction in Mandarin, but are probably learning more Canto just because it's spoken more. The parents who bring their kids here are smart and interesting (lots work in healthcare). The students are mostly Asian American. There is a private parking lot for drop offs, a private playyard with play structure and I think rubberized ground. This is a neighborhood that has a lot of trash and graffitti but the staff is diligent about painting it over and making the learning enviroment really nice for the kids (this is in contrast to two other similiar schools nearby). Their teaching philosophy is "academic based" which means the little kids are learning numbers and colors and letters. But there is active free play time during the day and music and art. Sometimes they send kids home with drawings or art that are clearly being done by the teachers. I wish they wouldn't do that. It's so obvious and I'd rather see my kid's more "creative," less perfect work. They use timeouts for discipline, when necessary. And I dont always agree with when its being used. And there is no app-based system for communication so you have to be proactive about asking questions at drop off and pick up. I think communication could be better. The food is all provided, but you can send extra things along. It's not great. Mostly processed and carb heavy. And I have heard my kid say that they ate "rainbow cereal" which alarmed me. But the joy of not having to pack a meal is real. For the price they are charging, I think the two biggest improvements they could make are adopting a communications system and providing more healthy food and less processed food. They serve the kids mostly on paperware but they use plastic utensil (there is also way too much plastic in this facility but I think same as a lot of places, esp with toys). They also give them screentime daily, which I think is terrible. It is not educational content like PBS shows or nature videos or even shows in Chinese language, but stuff like Paw Patrol which is so adrenaline driven with such overly dramatic sound design that is definiely not great for growing brains. Pickups are seamless because the kids are calm and watching shows. It is priceless to have your child immersed in Chinatown culture and learning language and experiencing a non-western style of development, so I am committed to this school. But I wish they were more advanced in their understanding of the harms of plastics, processed food and screens for child development.