Pasadena City College Child Development Center

I originally was going to give this place a 3 star review, but the way they deal with injuries is UNACCEPTABLE! If your child is hurt by another child they give you a note and tell u what happened but they WILL NOT tell you WHO hurt your child. This has happened twice and each time I am more upset. Luckily my child can talk and I know who is responsible. Parents should be told who hurts their child and they should understand that parents DO want to know these things. Besides that, the way they give you bills is also terrible. I’ve been given bills that are due less than 5 days from the date I received them. I asked them several times to let me know AT LEAST two weeks prior, but they keep doing it the same way. Put all that together and you’ve got a situation you might not wanna get involved with.

I have been really conflicted about my 5 star rating on Unilocal for PCC CDC. I wrote my initial review at the start of my oldest son’s experience in Preschool. I chose it based on the younger age classrooms, and then regretted not paying closer attention to the older classrooms of Preschool and Early Primary and how they are organized. Now that my eldest son has gone through 2 years of Preschool and my younger child has experienced 3 of the 5 rooms, I need to update my review. If I could rate the Center by room, I would rate it 5 stars for Infant, 3 or 4 stars for Toddler, 5 stars for Twos room, 1 star for Preschool, and maybe 3 stars for Early Primary.
Administration’s communication skills are poor and downright unprofessional. There are policies in place but they are enforced dependent on whether the front office staff likes you or not. You ask in April if your child will be moving to the next room and they can’t tell you. You sign a tuition contract in June and they hike up tuition in August leaving you absolutely zero time to figure something else out for your kid. But that’s not the problem, if you can believe it. The problem is that Preschool is the bulk of the Child Development Center and it is HORRIBLE.
The individual teachers in preschool are in general great, but it is really dependent on who you get and what you do to communicate with your teachers. If your child is there the full day, they will have a morning teacher and an afternoon teacher, and the two do not communicate with each other, despite what they tell you. Those in charge of preschool won’t help you figure things out unless they like you. The leadership is ineffective, chaotic, and unorganized. They advertise an 8:1 ratio; it’s not, and their scheduling issues translates to children being watched by «field practice students» who have absolutely zero experience controlling young children. Curriculum goes out the window about a month into the school year, and by spring, the project theme they have chosen goes out the window as well, so don’t expect your child to learn anything except a couple dance moves and some songs. Unlike the younger age rooms, preschool is a big huge double room with up to 48 children aged 2.5 to 5, 6 actual teachers, and some ungodly number of PCC students doing their field practice in the room. They say they group the children by age in the small groups, but by spring there are 2.5 year olds grouped with 4.5 year olds, so that is an utter lie. Why they go from an age divided structure (infants are 4 – 16 months, toddler room is like 14 months to about 2 years, older toddler is age 2, early primary is for age 4.5 and up by the start of the school year) to a large disorganized room in between the older toddler room and early primary I don’t know.
Perhaps the most awful part of this preschool is that you as a parent are made to feel like an outsider in your child’s experience. They don’t tell you about what they do with your child (like take them on mini field trips around the college!), they refuse to share pictures with you, they will literally move your child to another classroom and put your child under the care of a completely different teacher without telling you (happened to us!).
There are families that make it through the Older Toddler Room and then just leave, or do half a year to a year and leave. So long as there is a wait list, there is going to be little need for them to actually change the program… so to those that qualify for funding — you have PLENTY of options out there that are BETTER than this Preschool. To those that would pay full price — just because there’s a wait list doesn’t mean it’s good. There are plenty of programs cheaper and better than this one in Pasadena. I’ve toured them — they exist.
So I have to amend my review. PCC CDC is GREAT for a child under the age of 3, but not any older. If you’re interested at all in this place, I would highly recommend it for the younger classrooms, and not for the Preschool room.

Pcc cdc is terrible it is a day care where anything goes. I had my son in a private school before here and man the difference was insane. There classes here are so huge that none of the children get individual attention. My son had been kicked spit on and neglected while attending this place. Not only did his behavior become obnoxious and rude he always came home sick. What I find the most disturbing is many times I went to pick him up and you see children playing in the toilet, walking around the bathroom with nothing on under there waist and no adult supervision. Not to mention the front desk, communication was terrible. I had to fill out the same paper work at least three times in a row for one semester. They were rude especially Jessica I believe her name is. Marcy would always say come in this day to do our appointment or turn in paperwork then the day comes she’s not in and whoever else is in the front would be totally clueless They always told us dates we can start for my child then when the day came along it would be another person at the front desk not knowing anything going on. Such an inconvenience had to miss school because there miscommunication. Sorry whoever rates this place good basically has low standards for there children or have never experienced a great place. You get what you pay for and I believe a lot of people like it just because it is free. If you care for your child do not enroll here, make the sacrifice and pay for your child’s education and care.