Little Genius Academy

Love the teachers here! My son has his good and bad days but there are always great teachers greeting him to make him feel loved and wanted. It’s been 3 months and so far so good! The owner knows my name and my sons name and they are always there to answer all my emails, send me pics and let me know how he’s doing when he’s been sick. Great «home like» school! My 20 month old has developed rapidly since he started– he is talking more and he loves art and music class :)

My 5 year old spent there the last year. He absolutely loved the school. Caring teachers and nice, clean facility! Anna and Inga are doing a great job to manage the place and 7am to 7pm working hours — just a lifesaver for us, working parents!
Thank you, we will miss you!

My daughter has been with Little Genius Academy for about two years and we couldn’t be happier with the attention that they give her, but also the hands on teaching in her class. She is three years old and is already writing her name, counting beyond 50 and 100% potty trained. Not only has Little Genius staff worked with her on socialization and behavior, but also works with each child individually just the same. The teachers at the school love the children as their own and work hard to help each child in their personal development.
What bothers me about the two poor ratings is that I have not seen any of what the two parents have spoken about. Inga and Ana who run the center have always been helpful and wanting to get constructive feedback to make the school better, if needed. They have always worked with our daughter to ensure that SHE chooses the teacher that she wants to be with instead of sticking her in a class that she does not want to be in. I have spent many afternoons at the school observing and helping out. None of the issues with ratios, barking orders, or teachers not caring has come up. It is sad that people use Unilocal as their personal psychology board instead of attacking the issue at hand and trying to help the situation and talk about the concerns. The fact is that every teacher that I have been around through the daycare and preschool rooms have been more than willing to talk about my daughters day, how she did, what happened and where there is a need for improvement. They sent home exercises to continue working on personal growth and learning. LGA is a great place. Trustworthy and very hands on. LGA does understand that parents are busy and have some specific needs, but remember, they have to accommodate every child there in the same way. If you have concerns or needs, voice them. Inga, Ana, Andrea, Tina, Alesha, Cathy, Kim and the rest of the teachers are more than willing to help. My wife and I are very happy knowing that because of LGA, our daughter is far more advanced than going to some other preschool or daycare where they only want to give the children some paper to draw art and/​or stick them in front of a TV. Coming from an artist/​musician this is very important.
If you made it this far through my review, I’ll leave you with this. Go to LGA and see it for yourself. Ask to speak with some of the teachers. Talk with Inga and Ana about the school. Get involved. Trust them. You will find that they will become an extension of your family. Afterall they are assisting in raising of your child.

It has taken me 4 months to finally be able to write this review and all parents with infants really should be very wary of sending your child here. My son had been going to LGA from the time he was 6 weeks old until 10 months. There is a revolving door of care takers, really only two teachers were ever there long term. Ragardless of this fact my 10 month old child was put in a highchair, not strapped in and the tray was not secured. He leaned forward and fell head first. It is every parents worst nightmare. I rushed there and grabbed my son and demanded to see the video. After watching this I was just in shock. The absolute negligence that occurred in this situation is not redeemable and simply terminating the «new» teacher that failed to strap him in and turned her back on him and walked away does not justice to my child or our family. We filed a complaint with licensing but beyond that I felt the need to warn any parents that are looking at the facility. Obviously we never took him back and because of this decided on a well experienced nanny that we trust. I have two older children and know what quality care is and this definitely is the not place. Maria and Tatiana are really great people and I only wished he had been in their hands that day. Accidents happen but this was complete negligence. There were other incidents that my husband witnessed in the toddler room with a teacher that we already knew he would not being going here long term. My husband witnessed a teacher picking a crying child up by one arm in frustration. I only wished we pulled our son from here sooner.

This school is great. We enrolled our son at 9 months since we were seeking socialization. LGA quickly became his home away from home. Our son never cries when we drop him off. Every morning he is greeted warmly by the teachers and carried into the play room. He’s well loved and that is most important. The faculty work had to acclimate to each child’s unique needs.
The headmaster runs a tight ship and everything is clean and organized. I’ve noticed that teachers that don’t fit the mold are quickly let go.
Our son is now 19 months and has adjusted well. He’s talking, walking and a happy camper and that’s what we care about.

I concur with Liberty’s review. I have two children ages (almost) 2 and 5 who attend LGA. They both started at 5 months of age so I have a long history with this school. The bottom line is that our children have developed wonderfully and enjoy going here. The staff has been very warm and nurturing and the school provides a lot of stimulating activity.

I am absolutely thrilled with Little Genius. I have extremely high standards for my kids & they provide care that is above & beyond my expectation, we are very happy. We have twin girls, & brought them there at @ 8 months I think, we first started in the infant room. I was un-​happy with the quality of care & cleanliness at a larger area daycare & was exploring new options. I wish I had switched sooner, my girls are happy & are developing ahead of schedule! We have since enrolled our third little one there & plan to stay as long as age allows.
Staff– awesome, loving & attentive. They are also adequately staffed, highly energetic folks that keep up with the toddlers. The staff is also pretty stable, not a lot of turnover, so it’s consistent for the kids.
We are very satisfied with cleanliness — the kids are sick a lot less than they were at our old daycare.
Communication — it is better than most, the staff always let us know personally little fun things the kids to each day — or if something went wrong.
Other things I like:
1) Ease of medication permissions, they are very flexible when having to give the kids medicine & are great @ keeping track. It was a huge un-​planned hassle at our old daycare.
2) The food, some daycares don’t provide food — little genius does & the kids really like it.
3) Laundry — little genius has their own laundry & they wash the kids blankets/​ect. It’s great not to haul three toddlers worth of blankets home for washing every week
4) Fantastic outdoor space! I never really thought of this when originally looking for care, it’s critical to a child’s well being & enjoyment.
We are extremely happy & I won’t hesitate to stay there as long as we possibly can.

I am a high maintenance Mom.
I have been with LGA over 2 years now and have had experience with every «house.» I don’t typically post to Unilocal but I felt compelled after stumbling across these reviews. Because overall I think LGA is exceptional. I’ve given them 4 stars because I agree they need improvement in the toddler «house» — which I think the other reviews are bias toward — but I have had children in every «house» at the facility so I think its important to talk about them all.
That being said, here is why this place gets my 4 star rating:
–The director really wants this to be quality place where kids learn. She also has worked endlessly with me to try and juggle work schedules, financial difficulties & other setbacks. She also addresses parent concerns promptly — which is especially important when it comes to things like food allergies. Its nice to feel like regardless of what life throws at you, your daycare will work with you to keep those disruptions from affecting your children.
–The infant room teacher is excellent and has been there a long time. My son was there from 6 weeks to 12 months & still jumps into her arms every time he sees her.
–The ²⁄₃ year old building has loving teachers as evidenced by this past year’s Winter Wonderland. The outdoor play area is always nice & bright but with the teacher’s initiative it was transformed into a place that I think amazed every parent that walked in that day. The kids had a blast.
–I just cannot say enough about the Pre-​K /​Kinder room. The teacher’s are amazing. They provide fun learning opportunities and the kids look forward to seeing them everyday. They work with parents to make sure that if your child misses lessons they do not fall behind. This «house» by far is the star of the facility. I’d rate it a 6 if I could.
–Tuition is monthly instead of weekly which saves you 4 weeks worth of daycare at the end of the year & includes diapers & wipes (more $ saved).
–To me the best way to sum up their food program is that this is a large facility with a lot of kids and none of them are overweight. I think that’s an excellent example of the balance of nutrition and exercise LGA provides and cannot be said for most schools.
–Also, its open later than most facilities. You have until 630 to pick up your child.
I hope this provides a better overall picture of what LGA has to offer from someone who isn’t judging them from one perspective after only a couple of hours of experience.

The ONE Star is for the fact that they have a fairly nice facility. Beyond that this place was not only a huge let down after reading a few good reviews on Berkeley Parents and elsewhere. It was HAZARDOUS and in complete violation of CA State Childcare regulations.
We took our 2 year old son here after moving to the area early in 2011. The year had already begun but they had an opening in one of the two Toddler Rooms. Being my first child and his first time in daycare I was very concerned and attended his first few days for a major part of the day to get him adjusted. I observed many things that raised red flags with me but I kept telling myself ‘this is a nice facility and it has good reviews’. It’s pretty crazy, there are hundreds of reviews for restaurants but very few for quality childcare.
Anyway, when I would enter the class with my son the teacher barely had time to talk to me as the ratio was 8 or 9 to toddlers approximately 2 yrs old to 1 teacher. There were two toddler rooms and one was VERY SMALL for 9 children with not a lot of toys and or art. The second room was much bigger but for 2 teachers and had about 14 children. It was confusing because no one seemed to know which room my son should really be in and he bounced back and forth a bit. It was clear he wanted to be in the bigger more well equipped room but he kept getting put back in the smaller more overcrowded room. One day they had an assistant helping to make the ratios better but she kept leaving the room to check her cellphone and was not very interested.
During lunch they would bring all of the toddlers together in the kitchen/​lunch room which was not bad except at one point I counted 24 children with only ONE Teacher (and a cook who barked orders a bit). So one teacher was supposed to ensure the 24 toddlers behaved and ate their food. Needless to say it was complete CHAOS. Finally another teacher arrived but the damage was done. The children where far from calm and focused on eating.
This was all in the first week of him going 3 days a week for only 3 ½ hours. This was supposed to be an opportunity for him to bond and socialize. Not fight for attention and run around with a runny nose because the teacher can’t take time to wipe it for him (or the others).
On the first day of his second week I took him to class and planned to stay for awhile to see if things had gotten better and maybe discuss my concerns with the director. I brought him to the smaller Toddler class to start his morning and it was complete pandemonium. The ONE teacher was beseeched by 12 toddlers w/​my son making it 13 toddlers to ONE teacher. State law mandates a ⁶⁄₁ ratio for children this age. Several of the children would come up to me w/​a book and try to engage with me (not the first time) and many of the others where asking for things and looking like they needed a tissue. The teacher didn’t say a word to me she was too busy. After about 5 minutes of this I picked my son up and left. I told the director what I had seen and why I was leaving and she really wanted to haggle with me about how much of my prepaid tuition she wanted to refund me. Basically not much of it. In retrospect I should have threatened to report her to the state for such obvious violations.
Thank GOD I got my son out of there fast before some long term damage was done. There are ratios for a reason. Not the least of which is safety. Thankfully we found a MUCH better place nearby that had a 4 to 1 ratio for Toddlers w/​two teachers in the room. Some days it would be more like 6 to 2 when some children don’t show. You go in there and it’s very calm and peaceful (for 2 year olds) everyone is respectful and learning how to take turns and share. The teachers are never flustered and always have time to communicate with me any questions or concerns about my son. I won’t go into too much more detail about that great school as I plan to write a separate review for them soon.
All I can say is that unless things have changed don’t bring your toddler here. I can’t speak to much about the other age programs. The Kindergarten class actually looked like it might be good and was run by an actual teacher not someone with a few child development credits like the Toddler Rooms.

First of all, I have to say that Lisa M’s review of Little Genius Academy is so far off the mark that I felt compelled offer a different point of view — from someone who has had over 4−½ years of experience with their staff.
Our daughter has been at Little Genius Academy since she was 3 months old. We enrolled her in January 2007 and after exploring many different childcare options, we found this to be the best fit for her and for us. She has been there through their infant and childcare program, preschool, and is now entering their Kindergarten class in September.
She looks forward to going to school every day and learning something new. She is most excited about learning how to read her own books in Kindergarten and is already sounding out most of the words before her official start in September. Since she started their preschool program at 2 years old, she has been flourishing.
All of the teachers and staff at LGA are wonderful and are like an extension of our family. Our daughter feels secure and loved every day and we know she is in a safe environment.
When it came time to make a decision on where to go for Kindergarten, LGA was our only consideration. Their program is top-​notch, with small class sizes, great teacher-​parent communication and a clearly defined lesson plan each day. In addition, the before and aftercare provided at LGA is with children that are our daughter’s age, which is very important to us.
Parent group meetings, festivals and special events are held regularly throughout the year and are a great way for us to stay involved with our daughter at school as well as interact with some of the other parents at the school. We would highly recommend LGA to any parent looking for a childcare or school that will give personal attention to their children.
All in all, I have nothing but positive feedback for LGA and would give them more stars if I could.