Our Savior Lutheran School

Can’t say enough wonderful things about this preschool. The curriculum is amazing & the love that it shown to each child by the staff is wonderful. Knowing that my child is going to get hugs & told he/​she is loved makes me feel so happy I have chosen to keep my children at this preschool & school. I have had two children attend this preschool, one still at the preschool & the other is in kindergarten. I believe my child who is in kindergarten was beyond prepared for kindergarten. My children come home singing new songs, they know their letters & colors. The education level goes far behind whatever ever expected. Many times when I go to pick up my children they don’t want to leave because they enjoy being at OSLS/​preschool. My step son went to a different private preschool & was not prepared for kindergarten at all. Unlike OSLS preschool, who has a great curriculum, this other preschool was more like a daycare/​playtime rather providing any education.
In regards to the one negative review, i work with children myself but within the juvenile justice system. I know that discipline, manners, respect & the way children behave initially starts in the home. Many Parents today expect the school & school staff to raise their children. Parents need to set rules, boundaries & expectations in their home which then will carry on into the school environment. There are always two sides to each story & yes Ms Sara could have chosen a different way to handle the situation with that one constant misbehaving child, but one incident does not mean the entire school/​preschool is awful. It’s an amazing place with a kind, caring loving staff. We are going on our 4 year their & we love it

Saddens me to write this, because we are big fans of the curriculum and majority of the staff, but we had some disturbing experiences with the head of the preschool and her discipline methods that forced us to remove our children.
It started small with strange things we brushed off like the tone of her voice when addressing the children and we did our best to support her decisions, her staff did the same even though many would voice later their disagreement with methods being used, but we began to seriously question keeping our kids there when we found she was holding our child from activities for extended periods of time, effectively giving them time outs of 45 minutes or longer regularly.
We were already on the fence about keeping our children there due to this and the treatment the head would use with other students as well. If she was so harsh to other children, how could I know my kids weren’t getting the same treatment when I wasn’t present.
The last straw, as a punishment a diaper was «placed» on our child that was less than two months away from being 4 years old.
The diaper was put over their clothing, although they were fully potty trained and had been before even attending the school in an attempt to shame him.
Using potty talk and being wildly difficult was the reason cited for doing this, but we would have gladly picked our kid up had they phoned us if our kid was that out of control.
The whole thing sickened us, since there were other adults present that didn’t stop her, we are guessing they didn’t because since she’s in charge and they’re scared of losing their jobs.
Also upsetting is our kid’s account, aside from telling us that at least one other student witnessed it and was laughing at them, the whole night and next morning they complained of stomach pain where she held them down to «place» the diaper over their clothes.
A complaint was filed with licensing and a Type A citation was issued, that’s why I keep putting «place» in quotes. The report used that verbiage based on their interviews. I wish I would have called LPD.
Either our child was as out of control as reported by the staff and she must have used force to hold them down or they were calm and lying down and she still put it on our kid.
Disturbing, since there’s some truth clearly missing, but on the bright side the contradictions in the report confirmed for us we made the right decision to move on although our kids do miss their classmates and teachers very much.
Also, the school failed after grossly in handling our complaints and departure.
1. They didn’t keep the complaints to the licensing board anonymous.
2. They basically made me beg for our money back for the remainder of the time we’d paid for in advance after pulling our kids and when told I needed to speak to the principal on the matter, he didn’t want to talk to me initially. He didn’t «have anything to say» to me because I had no students there… Pathetic.
As a side note, apparently they’re circulating rumors they asked us to leave. Brilliant.
Seeing they’re advertising open houses via Facebook prompted me to post this, as although it’s been nearly a year, we are still dealing with the aftermath and I’m hoping to save some good Livermore families from Mrs. Sarah.
Their big boast was they’d never had any citations, well, they’re are a few registered now and I know of a few families that contacted me after with even worse stories that never even came forward because Sarah basically bullied them and sent them packing.

This review is for the preschool only. I am extremely impressed (so far) with this school! My daughter attended a lutheran preschool in Pleasanton and we are glad we made the switch. Our Savior is very warm and friendly. Our teachers came to our home for a visit before school even began to make my daughter feel comfortable. The curriculum is most impressive and is very organized. They have many activities that center around reading, movement, science, and math. They also teach the bible every class which is important to us. Each month has a theme with fun learning activities built around core lessons. Each week and month you get email communications about up-​coming events and they even have built in a conference to give you an idea of how your child is doing. So awesome and as a parent I really appreciate a professional opinion. My daughter comes home happy and cannot wait to go to school. She loves her teacher and new school. As a teacher myself, I am giving this preschool a thumbs up!

I have two children who have attended this school including a 5^th grader who will be attending the Middle School next year. What I really love about this school is the strong sense of community. The parents and staff are all supportive of not only the academic portion of the children’s education, but also the social, emotional and spiritual component of the children’s education. I love the broad academic curriculum that includes History, Literature, Art, Music, Foreign Language, and Technology, in addition to Math, Science, and PE. The History and Literature components are particularly impressive. And of course, I love the campus. It is beautiful and a great location right across the street from the Civic Center library.

We have been at Our Savior for 5 years now, preschool through 2^nd grade going into 3^rd grade.
We are very happy here for many reasons…
* curriculum has been updated to CORE knowledge program, highly recommended by our other accredited Lutheran schools, it’s a bit of a step up but our kids are fine
* uniforms are cheaper, we shop at the schools donated OK-​Corral room and have paid less than $ 100 for two kids sets of clothes
* small class size will allow for more personal communication w/​staff and teachers
* we love our extra classes such as PE, Spanish and Choir
* christian environment with not only help our children emotionally but how to interact and behave properly w/​other children as well as adults. my kids love chapel :-)
* our two principals are great, broken up into age groups is how they handle their group load
* our families are close and communicate well and lean on each other, there don’t seem to be groups of parents not including others
* our teachers are all different and offer different qualities to help our children deal with and communicate with every personality type
Cons
* well yes we pay for all of these great perks but I would rather have a smaller home and cut costs elsewhere in our family to provide such a nice structure for our children to grow up in…

My child has attended this school for 3 years. I’ve been very happy with the small community feeling. He knows many of the kids in different grades and for the most part loves to go to school each day. This year there is a new principal, and she seems very thorough and in touch with the students and teachers. I’m excited for the changes this year.
Pros —
— Uniforms (yay no dressing battles, no expensive school clothes to buy) There is a clothing exchange for gently used uniform pieces
— Small, community feeling — you and your child won’t feel lost in the crowd
— The school provides the classroom supplies (no need to purchase binders, pencils etc)
— Spanish starting in Kindergarten
— Music starting in Kindergarten (and choir starting in 1^st grade)
— Track Team open to all — starting with Kindergarten
— Prayer, Bible Verses, Bible stories, respect for God and others is taught
— Computer class starting in Kindergarten! OSLS is teaching kids in the environment they will need to function in for the future. I think it’s a great concept!
Cons — Of course you pay tuition for all the wonderful stuff listed above.
We’ve been very happy here and plan to continue for many years.