Crescent Park Child Development Center

Long time reader. First time reviewer. We are thrilled with CP. Only our first year but the staff has been great and our daughter raves. I am optimistic that we made a great choice. I am sorry others feel different. Each experience is unique.
Ciao

My son has spent almost 3 years at Crescent Park, and we love it! The space is well thought out to allow the children the freedom to be creative throughout the day. The staff turnover is a hot topic, but my view is that there are valid reasons that do not reflect the director or her staff. Three teachers left to become full-​time parents; 2 left for vertical career growth opportunities at different institutions and 2 left as their families moved out of state for jobs– all these reasons would make anyone leave a current position– does not reflect CP. And there are some teachers who have been there throughout! I’ve never had any issues with communicating one on one with a teacher or the director. Always accommodating.
When we started CP, we knew no one, and naturally was concerned how he would cope in a facility that was quite large. As I transitioned him, I witnessed the care and oversight the teachers gave to the newer children, helping them integrate into the CP community. He did fine.
As a parent, I regularly have lunch with my son and his group, and it’s wonderful to see him with his peers, but also get to know the other children. CP staff is always open to give feedback, help our children in any difficult situation. It’s play based, and teaches them what I call «Life Lessons».
There’s the saying, if you want to stay at your child’s school, then it’s the right place for him/​her. There are many mornings that I want to stay at CP. It’s calm yet full of life. Highly recommended to anyone in the Palo Alto area.

I’ve never written a Unilocal review before, but it’s frustrating how, quite literally, a few individuals’ experiences can color the entire reputation of one institution. so, here goes:
My family has been at Crescent Park for nearly three years, and I’ve sent both of my daughters there. I suppose the elephant in the room is the staff turnover and it is true: there is higher staff attrition than — from what I hear — there is at comparable preschools. But there are also a few who have remained and stayed consistent throughout our time there. I think that much of the turnover has to do with early childhood education itself and the fact that as an industry it’s going to attract younger teachers who can only live on lower salaries for so long. And perhaps at CP it has to do with the director and her management of the teachers. I don’t know the cause, but for our family, the care and attention put into the environment and the community far outweighs this one issue.
CP values children and their ability to grow and make decisions on their own. It believes that young kids are worthy of a beautiful environment, with options and opportunities and it does an amazing job of giving our kids all this and more. As non-​native Californians, we appreciate that CP blends the outdoor and indoor spaces and allows for kids to play and learn in both areas equally, taking advantage of the amazing climate we are lucky to enjoy here.
It is a large environment, and that is one of the advantages that Crescent Park offers — there is a diversity among the kids, in attitude, temperament, and ability, and my kids have been able to learn from other children in ways I couldn’t even imagine.
I’m disappointed that people would take singular examples of their particular experience and present them as if they were blanket statements on Crescent Park. No school is perfect for every child, but we have had an amazing experience there, with the loving teachers, the creative activities, the high quality toys, books, and learning supplies, and the fantastic facilities. We feel fortunate to have given our children the opportunity to spend time learning through play in such a lovely and thoughtful preschool (and community) as Crescent Park.

In our experience, Crescent Park has constant staffing change. This revolving door of supervising adults in the classroom is positively nerve-​wracking for small children. Any person with common sense knows that small children need stability, routine and consistency to feel safe and sound. The staff turnover rate at Crescent Park is far outside the industry standard of other schools in the area. We can only surmise that this institution does not value or compensate their staff highly. For this reason and others, this was an unacceptable preschool for our child.

Our Experience in General: It was nightmarish. Our opinion is that what largely made CP such a nightmare for us was the Director. The facility is quite nice; classrooms are well done; and some of the longer-​term teachers were very sweet and had big hearts. However, the culture and tone of a place comes from those at the top, and based on our experience, the Director is a controlling narcissist who doesn’t truly value her staff, the children under her care or the parents who are writing the checks each month.
Staffing: Turnover in the staff is high. In a years time a surprising number of staff members left CP (voluntarily or not). When I brought up the negative effect of so many staff changes on my child, the Director simply stated that kids are adaptable. Um, sure, to a point. but where was her empathy/​compassion? How about acknowledging such changes are neither typical nor good and that some of the kids might need some assistance in dealing with the changes? How about taking responsibility for the changes, especially when it became common knowledge that most, if not all, of the departures was due to a conflict between the staff member and the Dir. It’s her way or the highway, apparently. In addition to the high-​turnover rate in the staff, CP appeared to be regularly understaffed. Teachers did not have the time to really engage with the kids, certainly not one-​on-​one; they barely had enough time to put out fires and act as hall-​monitors.
The CYA Method: Whenever we brought up an issue, the Director either used «licensing requirements» or CP’s «play-​based/​EMOL philosophy» as a way of justifying whatever it was that happened that we took issue with and her approach to it. The CYA method of responding to issues happened with amazing ease and fluidity over and over again. There is a time and place for such impressive CYA skills and a pre-​school is not one of them.
Specific Examples: One example that really encapsulates all that we found so wrong with CP: We asked the Dir. and a couple of the teachers to please not allow our 3.5 year old child to sleep so late into the afternoons. We had picked up our child at 3:30pm on several occasions and he was either still sleeping or just getting up from his nap. I explained to the Director that lately my child had not been going to bed until between 10pm and 11pm — which is not an acceptable bedtime — and such was almost certainly due to his napping at school. This made mornings extra difficult because, regardless of bedtime, our child still had to wake up early to get to school. So he was not getting enough sleep at night. On weekends at home, our child did not nap, and he went to bed around 8:30pm. Our child was clearly growing out of napping and getting too much sleep at school. This was all explained to the Dir., but she refused to take responsibility for his late bedtime and instead tried to point her controlling, narcissistic finger back at us, suggesting our bedtime routine was the problem. Oh sure, yeah, that’s the problem.
The Director did not respect our opinion about OUR child at all. She claimed that he wasn’t «forced» to sleep and they needed to «follow licensing requirements» and «respect the child’s body». What BS. How about respecting our desires as the child’s parents? She reasoned that if he weren’t really tired, then he wouldn’t fall asleep. Seriously? If you force any person to lie down on a mat, take away toys, turn off lights and play lullaby music, EVENTUALLY, ANYONE is going to fall asleep. I would. And EVENTUALLY he did — long past when he should have been starting a nap, which is why he was sleeping so late into the afternoon.
A second example, and long-​story-​short, CP claimed that our shy child was keeping the teachers from doing their jobs because he required more attention from them then some of the other children. The Dir. wanted us to PAY her friend the speech therapist to help my son learn to engage with other children while at school, thereby reducing his reliance on teachers. REALLY? The teachers don’t know how to deal with shy kids? What was the nearly 2K per month we paid to CP going towards? That was some very expensive hall-​way monitoring. Anyhoo, we reluctantly agreed to pay for additional «help» but let CP know that we’d use our own pediatrician-​recommended speech therapist to work with our child at school (not the Dir.‘s friend) and 2 days later we were kicked out of CP.
Thank you, CP, for kicking us out, thereby shoving our school search into fifth gear (we’d already started our search soon after the napping issue)! Our child is now at an awesome school, socializing his little heart out, and going to bed at a normal time. Additionally, within just a few weeks of leaving CP, his verbal skills shot through the roof. That’s what happens when teachers work WITH parents, FULLY engage with and take some responsibility for the development of the children in their care all day and when a Dir. encourages its teachers to do so.

I’m really surprised about the Unilocal rating of Crescent Park. It is a really good preschool with a thought-​out philosophy that iterates itself in every room, in every outdoor garden space, and in the child-​teacher interactions. The teachers here are phenomenally smart, and they handle all kinds of typical child behavior, from being clingy and napping to running and laughing, with incredible ease. They are incredibly zen when approaching children.
Here’s an example: one morning at drop off, my daughter ran to the playground structure, were two older girls were also playing. They told my daughter she couldn’t come up. One of the teachers walked up and said, «Good morning girls. When I see my friends in the morning, I say good morning to them.» Then the magic: the girls became totally generous with my daughter.
Here’s what I noticed: there was no «no» in the teacher’s interaction. There was no «trouble» or someone in trouble. But there was resolution. Like I said, the teachers’ interaction here is awesome and it is always framed in a positive way.
I think this comes from the way the school works with its teachers. I’ve seen the director in regular meetings with a few teachers at a time, where it seems they are reflecting on the day or talking about issues that come up. It seems they keep doing regular trainings for their teachers.
About that «zone» defense mentioned in another review: they do work in zones, but this is in support of the philosophy they are acting out. Children are not assigned rooms. They have full run of all the spaces. I love that my child can feel like painting at one point, sliding at another, and building blocks later on. I believe this means they assign teachers to a couple of spaces (including the ever beautiful snack table and – get this – a blanket with baskets of books for anytime story time), who then shift to spaces that happen to be more occupied than others. But invariably, the kids find equilibrium across the school. The school puts a lot of trust in the kids to gravitate toward their interests, and the schools puts a lot of work into building spaces that will attract the various interests of their children.
The space itself is gorgeous – one of the best I’ve ever seen. I didn’t want to leave our first day there. But like every school out there, you have to make sure the school philosophy and the school layout and the school teachers work for you and your child. Our daughter loves it and is thriving. I can see how the large space could be overwhelming for the temperament of some kids, but I’ll also say this: there was a new child at Crescent Park who was having a hard time transitioning into school (I believe school is new to this child), but by the third week of the new school year, and this child was really happy. It’s because of the way the teachers help with the transition, but also let it happen on each child’s time. It’s a testament to just how caring the teachers are and how much they talk with one another to coordinate taking care of each child.
A final note: every day one of the teachers will tell us a story about our child that day. Often, more than one teacher, either on our way in or on our way out, will let us know about the day. It just makes us feel like we’re part of something bigger.

My child was there 3 years ago, but the nightmare took a long time to recover from. I generously gave the school two stars because the actual environment is beautiful with natural wood toys and open play areas.
Unfortunately this school is always understaffed, so they pretty much watch the kids based on the zone defense, similar to basketball. There is almost no one-​on-​one opportunity for children and caregivers. Also, they do not have any emergent learning going on, even though they say they follow the children’s curiosity. They just are not staffed to support the 55+ kids running around all day. They also have a lot of staffing turnover.
One more comment: that cool climbing rock in the sand box? The kids are NOT allowed on it.

Crescent Park is a beautiful, caring school and my child loves it there. When you tour the place you will immediately notice the beauty of the lay out, both inside and out, the thoughtfulness of the materials, the artistry of the entire school is striking. You also notice how much space the kids have to explore, both physical space as well as time space. There is not a seeming structure to what is happening sometimes, though the children do spend time in circle time as well as in free play. Their curiosities lead the show here, which is a positive at this age. When they get to preK they do learn to write and read and are prepared for what lies ahead beyond preschool. We were part of the toddler program also. The teachers are super helpful with potty training, the kids are taught how to nap in a group. The philosophy emphasizes collaboration and free exploration. The only issue the school is currently having is a lot of change in the staff, which we are hoping they stabilize and figure out very soon before our next daughter enrolls in a year and half or so. The other thing to note is that it is a large school with a lot of students (55) and it can seem really huge and overwhelming. We haven’t found it a problem for our child at all, who is quite social, and knows most of the students by name. For a shyer child, it could be a bit much, and you would want to be sure this school is a great fit for your particular child and his/​her temperament.