Not sure why there are so many bad reviews. My son has gone here for 3 years; first in a 50/50…read moreEnglish/Chinese environment, then in a Chinese immersion environment. We're very happy with the teachers he's had, with the friends he's made, with the extended hours of the school, etc. At first we didn't think he was learning much Chinese, but then his grandma came to live with us from China, and we realized he was just shy, and he could actually speak Chinese very well. Overall, great school, happy with his progress in English, math, Chinese. Happy with a structured curriculum that also gives him free time to choose his own passions.

I would give 0 star if I could. This is a fake Montessori school. It has no Montessori…read morecertification. Unlike other Montessori schools, kids play with toys in the afternoon instead of doing work. The classroom is full of Montessori material, but that's only for decoration. The kids have never touched some of the materials because teachers don't even know how to use them. Also, most teachers don't have certification either. The way they treat student is completely wrong. They dont comfort kids when they feel said. I feel like they don't actually care about their students and their feelings. The school is closed this year in March due to coronavirus. Parents send tons of emails asking for tuition refund and we receive no response. Not even to just acknowledge that they have received our email. The director refund 25% of tuition fee for April while the school is closed for the month. Some parents want to hold off their April payment until school reopens. They received a notice from school saying that if you don't pay for April, we will consider this as an act of withdrawing your child from school. The 2 month deposit would be gone. Their decision is very business driven to benefit their needs. They are still making money from us during this time period and use it to support school development(they are building a new campus) and teacher training program. Would a school without certification spend money on teacher's development? I doubt it.

We love this preschool, all three of our kids have had a wonderful experience here. My oldest son…read morewent here in 2012 when it was at a different location and Caroline was his teacher, when my second was ready for school in 2015, I put him in this bilingual preschool as well. Now my youngest daughter is attending this preschool, she is enrolled in the Chinese and English and her Chinese has significantly improved. We don't speak Chinese at home and because the school has sparked a curiosity in her, she requests Chinese words throughout the day and asks, "how do you say this in Chinese?" We were at a preschool before whose values did not align with our early learning philosophy. That school had wanted to teach every child exactly the same and ignore the needs of the child's developmental stage. We wanted a preschool that deepened our child's love for learning while treating them each as individuals and Language Garden does both. We feel so blessed to have found them. It's been over a year for my daughter and the teachers in both Chinese and English classrooms have been the same which helps build that stability a child needs to thrive. I highly recommend them!

TL;DR: We found the owners extremely inflexible, unreceptive to parent feedback, and rigid about…read more"school policy," even when those policies weren't clearly communicated. The school made a great impression during our tour, and our son's homeroom teacher, Ms. Chloe, was wonderful. Unfortunately, our experience with the owners/administration was terrible. I originally considered giving one star, but reconsidered solely because of Ms. Chloe. (More below) During our tour with the owner, Catherine, I was genuinely impressed. She knew the children by name and remembered details about their development, and I loved that she had 35+ years of childcare experience. We were also excited that the toddler teacher, Ms. Chloe had Montessori training and experience, and that the school is dual language Mandarin & English. During the tour, we saw teachers preparing what appeared to be homemade seaweed soup and other homemade food, and we were specifically told that if we sent food from home, it would be heated before serving to our child. Unfortunately, after enrolling, our son barely ate his school lunches, and the leftovers coming home provided by the school were frequently things like hot dogs and hamburgers, chicken nuggets. We started sending homemade meals instead that he would usually eat, such as stir fry and dumplings but unfortunately he continued to not eat much of his lunch. Six months later, we learned the school actually had a policy against reheating food from home. Our son started in December, and we didn't learn this until June by a new teacher. I wonder when we would have found out otherwise. This policy wasn't in the parent handbook we received and contradicted what we were told during our tour. For months, we were sending food expecting it to be warmed without realizing our son was being offered it cold. No wonder why he wasn't eating. For something as basic and important as whether our child was eating during the day, this was incredibly appalling. We also found the school extremely inflexible with scheduling. We paid for three days per week, but couldn't switch days or make up days missed due to illness or other situations. For example, if our schedule was M/W/F and we needed M/W/Th one week, Thursday required an additional payment even if our son didn't attend Friday. I understand that daycares need predictable staffing and policies, but there seemed to be very little flexibility. If we are paying for 3 days and they are saving the spot for my son, why does it matter which 3 days of the week? Another frustration was the administration's response to parent feedback. The school uses Brightwheel for communication, billing, and daily updates, but photos are uploaded separately to Flickr. Photos from the entire school are posted together, usually a day or two later, meaning I had to scroll through hundreds of photos just to find a few of my son. I repeatedly asked if photos could at least be organized by classroom so parents could easily see their own child's class. The request was repeatedly rejected because of "school policy." I also wasn't comfortable with every other parent or grandparent of the school having access to photos of my child. Eventually, I stopped checking Flickr because I simply didn't have time to scroll through 400+ photos. The best part of our experience was Ms. Chloe. She genuinely cared about our son, shared stories about his day, and made us feel like she really knew him. We also saw significant improvement in both his English and Chinese vocabulary during his time at Language Garden. Most importantly, he felt safe and comfortable with her. During the months when drop-off was difficult, we always felt relieved when Ms. Chloe was there to receive him. There are caring teachers here, and the school made an excellent first impression. Unfortunately, the gap between what we expected from our tour and what we experienced--particularly around food, scheduling, communication, and the administration's receptiveness to parent feedback--ultimately left us very disappointed. PS: my son's new daycare posts photos of him DAILY in brightwheel itself. Clearly it's possible. AND we still drop him 3 days a week, and they don't require a set schedule. We just drop him any 3 days and they are fine. That's what we should be paying for! I have done many daycare tours at this point, and am happy to share my experience with various daycares in the Eastside that may be a better fit, if anyone parents would like to reach out. Best of luck!

Our son has been in Spectrum Academy since early January and we really like this school. Teachers…read moreare very patient, kind and loving. With their help, our son quickly got used to school life and he is now very happy to go there and see his classmates and teachers. He learned a lot in school and we can see him making progress every day. The teachers also did an awesome job helping potty train him. He got rid of diapers in about a month.

We sent both our kids to Spectrum Academy since the beginning of 2023 when we moved to Redmond…read more They absolutely enjoyed it! The teachers here are very loving and caring for the kiddos. They teach little kids reading and math, but most importantly, how to make friends with each other and be kind and supportive to each others, which in my perspective, is one of the most important values I would teach my children as well. The manager, Ms. Julie, is super responsive and flexible to accommodate our family need. For example, the school provide spring/summer camps, Chinese classes, PE, keyboard, dance classes you can sign your kids up. All and all, we are very happy with our experience at Spectrum and are grateful for all the love and care my children received during their time there.

Both of our children attended Chestnut Hill Academy, and our youngest just graduated from 5th grade…read morelast week. Throughout their K-5 journey, every teacher was exceptional, supportive, and genuinely caring. Communication between teachers, staff, and parents has always been outstanding. We love CHA's focus on community building, leadership, strong academics, and the emotional well-being of its students. Both of our children loved their time at the school and formed wonderful friendships that will last a lifetime. As parents, we have had the privilege of watching our children grow into confident, resilient, and well-prepared middle school students with strong leadership skills and perseverance. We are incredibly grateful to the entire CHA community for the positive impact it has had on our family.

Our daughter attended CHA from kindergarten and will be completing 4th grade this year. The school…read morehas been incredibly supportive from the beginning. Each of her teachers from K-4 were engaged and provided regular feedback on matters related to academics, social, and well-being. We really enjoyed the school programs from performing arts, field trips, winter activities, and leadership opportunities. CHA also did a great job connecting parents and building a strong community with the school.

As a former student, Eton is a great school. The teachers are all very kind and understanding and…read moregenuinely help you to learn. I will say, I think Eton School works best as an upper elementary/middle school. I might be biased because that's when I attended Eton, but I think they offer the best support during that time. The only major downside to Eton is that especially in middle school, since there's so few kids (about 20 7th & 8th graders total and 10 6th graders when I attended) it means that there aren't exactly many options for friends. That was part of why I left in 7th grade and am now currently in public school. I also think that even if the kids here are smart, they do teach a decent amount ahead. Some of the teachers said that they were teaching us 9th grade honors (which, we were in 7th and 8th grade at the time). I think also that there was a weird amount of homophobic, racist, and/or sexist kids here, to the point that there might genuinely be less sexist kids in my current public middle school of over 1000 kids than here. But you get to do so many fun projects (especially in 8th grade, which I'm sad I'm missing out on) and I'd also like to specifically shout out Mrs. Zender, Mrs. Amelia, and Mrs. Eleanor for being some of the best teachers there. Mrs. Zender fully cares about learning and is to this day the most thorough and smart teacher I've ever had who actually challenged me, and Mrs. Amelia and Mrs. Eleanor were both kind and caring who always made their classes safe spaces.

To recommend DWs post from 10 years ago - this is statement is still accurate in 2025…read more This school is fine for easy-going kids who would do well anywhere. They absolutely do not focus at all on the social or emotional development of the children. Any and all problems are considered the parent's problem to fix. They also hire teachers with no secondary education background, and have no business calling themselves a dual accredited school when they can't support a class structure - it's chaos in there

Both of my children are currently enrolled at RSM, and I've seen how much the program has…read morecontributed to their success in math at school. Because of RSM, I feel confident about their future and their ability to think critically, approach challenges, and solve problems independently. I truly appreciate how thoughtfully the program is designed, not only in terms of the curriculum but also through helpful tools like the **Student and Parent Portals**, where everything is organized in one place and gives us a clear picture of our children's progress and performance. The RSM staff are welcoming, helpful, and responsive. The teachers are highly professional and attentive to students' and parents' needs, and they always take the time to address questions and requests. I truly appreciate their support and dedication. The impressive number of Olympiad winners speaks for itself and reflects the quality of the program. This is a school for thoughtful and involved parents. Sometimes, children don't yet realize what they want or what they need, and as parents, we help them discover it, understand their strengths, and find the right path for their growth. As a parent, having this visibility and support means a lot to me. I'm very grateful to be part of the RSM community!

My son has been enrolled in RSM Bellevue since 2018 (7 years). He was getting bored with math in…read moreSeattle Public Schools, and found that the math taught at RSM was much more intellectually stimulating-- the classes moved faster, the teachers went deeper into the subjects, and there was an emphasis on problem-solving. I felt that the teachers and principles saw my son as a person and sincerely tried to advise the best for him when it came to class sequencing. They were responsive to my questions and always got back to me. One year, when we were trying to decide which classes to take, one of the teachers even created a powerpoint specific to my son and scheduled a zoom conference so that the three of us could go over it together. I am grateful to RSM for making math fun for my son, when the public schools were not. Also, as a side note, there are some very excellent Chinese restaurants and a Mercury's coffee to eat at while waiting for your child during their math class!

Caring and friendly teachers. lot of fun filled activities for the kids. my son enjoyed this school…read moreand learned a lot.

Best preschool in bellevue area. Highly recommend this school. Teachers are caring and friendly…read more Can't find a better school than this.

My daughter attended the toddler program at Arbor, and unfortunately, our experience was not very…read morepositive. From the beginning, she was reluctant to go to school, though at her age (3 years old) she couldn't clearly express why. On the administrative side, I often found communication confusing and overly bureaucratic. The primary care director frequently stepped in when issues arose in the classroom, but her messages did not always align with the teachers', and she did not appear to have decision-making authority. When we finally decided to withdraw our daughter after several difficult months, the process was particularly challenging. We submitted our withdrawal notice one day later than the contract required (on a Sunday rather than Saturday). While I acknowledge that this was our oversight, the financial impact was in the thousands of dollars, and the school was unwilling to make any accommodation. Discussions with the primary director, assistant head, head of school, and eventually the owner all reinforced the sense that policies were rigid and prioritized the business side over the child's well-being or the family's situation. I later spoke with another parent who had a very similar experience regarding withdrawal fees, which made me realize this was not an isolated case. To be fair, there are dedicated teachers at Arbor, and I know some children do well there. However, if challenges arise, families should be prepared for limited flexibility and a process that may feel more focused on contractual obligations than collaborative problem-solving.

very unfriendly, not welcoming staff. Atmosphere/ environment is dingy not well lit, a bit…read moredepressing in-fact. not family oriented and to say it lightly biased.