In September 2017 when it was the last day of my maternity, I scheduled a tour of Goddard School in…read moreHerndon. (Tip: if you are a first time parent, please book a spot for your kid ahead of time). In our case, we got one last spot for our 2 month old daughter (then) and she started the school the following week. I remember first walking into the school and taking the tour appreciating its beautiful building, playground and classes. During our tour, an older kid walked into the office and gave a hug to one of the directors. It was such a great sign. Not only that kid loved the school, teachers but also directors in the front office. Since 2017, Goddard school in Herndon has been a part of our life. My older one graduated from Goddard school in 2022. She always had amazing teachers around her who not only cared for her but also loved her. Even today when we go to pick up our younger daughter, our older daughter still hugs those teachers (many of them are still here which is so unique for the school). I should mention my daughter had Ms. Padmini as a teacher who is a Computer Engineer turned to educator. One morning, when I was dropping my daughter off, I heard Ms. Padmini teaching signs using alpha, beta, delta. Now, Ms. Padmini designs the curriculum for the entire school. The kids are in great hands with her. They are truly getting STEAM focused education. Ms. Marilynn has been a caring, energetic and wonderful administrator. Last winter, one evening my car just would not start because of battery issues. Ms. Marilynn stayed with us until my husband arrived to make sure we were okay. I don't know a whole lot of people who would do this but having her in this school has given me comfort that my daughters are in a caring place. Ms. Abha has been excellent owner of this school. As a former preschool teacher herself, she brings a wealth of experience. She has brought very practical changes/enhancements to the school. It is no wonder that school gets voted to be the one of the best schools in this area. I would highly recommend this school. Thanks to the amazing education at this school, my kids turned social, friendly, and confident. They look forward to going to their respective schools and are progressing by leaps and bounds. What else can one parent ask for!

We started our nearly 2 year old in January. The owner is wonderful, a former educator who has…read moredemonstrated to me that she puts quality of care above profit. There are also two directors who are actively engaged in my child's experience. This administration team has also demonstrated they apply a high standard to their teachers in hiring, as I observe new trial-period classroom aides either growing into a permanent position or being asked to depart ways because the person was not the right fit. The result is a team of incredible teachers! When my daughter had a difficult time transitioning to her new 2 year old classroom, it felt as if every teacher in the building was aware and working to help her through the emotional journey - teachers from other classrooms stopping me in the hallway to ask how she's been doing. For me, it is a difficult decision to not be the primary caretaker for my daughter. The Goddard School of Herndon team understands that and seems to me that they operate knowing they are taking care of the most important thing to me - my kid.

Our children have been at this location for about a year now and we've been very happy! My oldest…read morehad an amazing relationship with his teacher last year before he went off to Kindergarten- he still asks to go back and visit! The teachers are kind and experienced and the director is awesome- top notch communication.

We could not be happier with our KinderCare family. The director and teachers are amazing: kind,…read morecaring, knowledgeable, and passionate about what they do. The facility is well maintained, too, and the abundance of playground space means that this location is able to prioritize recess and physical activity. This is truly a great place for kids to grow and learn.

They taught my son that you can have two dads or two moms because he told me that he learned it…read morethere. Now he keeps bringing it up and is asking me who he's going to marry. THANKS. I had enjoyed everything up until I found this out, now my trust in them has completely changed.

My daughter has been going to school here for almost a year. It has done wonders for her social…read moreskills, academic skills, and behavior! The owners, staff members, and teachers are amazing and I love the tadpoles app where they post pictures and videos of her throughout the day to keep me connected. I can ask her about specific activities she did to help start a discussion about her day! The daily report is also incredibly detailed and they have a thorough curriculum which they follow. She just missed the county's cut off to start kindergarten this Fall but I believe she is kindergarten ready because of this school! She will attend their kindergarten program instead. The quality of the work I have seen from kids in that class is far above and beyond what I have seen in a typical kindergarten classroom. I did a lot of research before I selected this school for her and we could not be happier with our choice!

Policy and payment warning! If you're considering Clifton Children's Academy, please pay very close…read moreattention to all paperwork. While you'll not find all of the payment information in one place, you'll soon find that you're doling out a lot of money up front that will be returned to you under NO circumstances. First, you'll pay a "registration fee." Then, you'll pay "reserve tuition," which is equivalent to a full month's payment, for which you will receive NO services. And if you later decide to use a fewer number of days, this fee will NOT be reduced. THEN, also up front, you will pay 20-60% of the full year's tuition. Now, you may think that that payment is not an additional fee because the 20% supposedly covers the last two months of the 10-month school year. HOWEVER, in the fine print, there is the stipulation that these funds will be forfeited if the school determines that there are "behavioral" issues with your child. I have not met many behaviorally perfect 3-5 year old children! While I am not saying that this school will expel your child and keep your money on false pretenses, the payment policies are a perfect setup for that sort of thing to happen. It could happen that you pay over 70% of a full YEAR'S tuition (not a small amount, in my world) and forfeit it with very little service given. If you have that kind of money to spare, are confident that your child will have no "behavioral" problems, and feel that this school will be able to provide a competent educational experience for your child, then proceed with enrollment! Otherwise, caveat emptor! I have never encountered this sort of payment policy trap anywhere else, but I have learned the expensive lesson to watch for it in the future.

Clifton Children's Academy is the perfect fit for our family. They offer the flexibility of a…read morechild care program, but with the atmosphere of a small, homey preschool. The gorgeous campus, excellent staff and enriching program are what attracted us to CCA... so much so, that not only are we enrolling our son in the preschool, but I will also be joining the staff!

I don't feel like I have the right words to fully capture how incredible this preschool is, but…read moreI'll do my best. We are truly grateful for our time at Centreville Preschool Inc. (CPI). Every detail, from curriculum planning to fundraisers and school events, is thoughtfully planned with so much care and love. The staff genuinely wants to help shape the future of our children, and that meant everything to me when choosing a preschool. As a parent who values being involved and understanding what my child is learning, I can confidently say their communication is exceptional. You truly feel included and informed every step of the way. Having parents as part of the staff and welcomed into the classroom creates a strong sense of community and gave us such peace of mind when sending our child to their first preschool. I cannot thank the CPI staff, teachers, and families enough for the kindness, support, and care they've shown not only to our family, but to all families. This is a wonderful place to send your little one, especially if you value being involved in their education. I highly recommend CPI to anyone looking for a preschool. We look forward to sending our future children to CPI and continuing to be part of the CPI family.

I rarely leave negative reviews, but I feel an obligation to other parents to share our experience…read more My daughter attended this preschool until recently, when she was violently bitten by another child--an incident that was both shocking and heartbreaking. What made this even more distressing was that this child had reportedly shown concerning, aggressive behavior for months. My daughter (like other children in the class) became afraid to go to school because of this child and started to pretend to be sick on schooldays. Multiple parents raised concerns and filed formal complaints, hoping the school would put proper support systems, supervision, and communication in place. Unfortunately, nothing meaningful ever happened. I want to be clear: I don't blame the child. Children who act out physically are almost always struggling in some way and need gentle, consistent support from the adults responsible for their care. My heart truly goes out to this little one. Children show us they need help in the only ways they know how--and it's the school's job to respond appropriately. The problem here was the school's complete lack of action. They did not communicate effectively with parents, including (shockingly) the parents of the child involved in the ongoing behavior. That lack of communication appears to have allowed a difficult situation to escalate unnecessarily, ultimately hurting multiple families. After my daughter was bitten, we made the immediate decision to withdraw her. What stunned me most was what happened next: nothing. No exit interview. No request for feedback. No inquiry about why we were leaving. No apology. Not even a word from her teacher. We simply unenrolled her the next day, and the school never acknowledged it at all. This was an incredibly disappointing and disheartening ending to what we hoped would be a nurturing environment. I sincerely hope the school takes a long, hard look at its communication practices and its responsibility to support all children--both the ones being hurt and the ones doing the hurting. Kids deserve better, and so do parents.

Love the teachers and staff!! A great first experience for children in the school setting.read more

We can no longer recommend this center. We have removed our child out of safety concerns and…read morereported them to the state and county licensing authorities. The lead teacher of the toddler room, Atsupi Anthony, gave our 16 month old a cup of laundry detergent which she tried to drink, in addition to dish soap and hand soap. The only reason we know it happened is that she sent us a photo of it with a caption describing it. The Friday before this incident we had spoken to the director about other concerns with Ms Anthony's judgement. I observed her yelling to another teacher not to give a toddler food after his cheese stick fell on the floor ("he needs to learn a lesson and not drop he food") He's under 2, kids drop things. The director said she would investigate and counsel Ms Anthony, that we should trust her because she has many years of experience and parents love her. We notified the regional manager about the laundry detergent and Bright Horizons has, in accordance with their HR policy, decided to counsel her and leave her in charge of the class. Their policy is to counsel, reprimand and then terminate. The regional manager said that Ms Anthony doesn't have anything in her record, that the yelling incident was not recorded and they have to start with counseling her. I'm not sure you can counsel good judgement into someone and am not going to let her practice with my child. For these reasons we are concerned that Bright Horizons does not take safety seriously and have chosen to remove her.

My husband and I love Bright Horizons at Commerce Metro Center. All of the staff are wonderful and…read moreso caring! Our daughter has been there for the past two years since she started daycare at four months. She loves all of the teachers she has had and is learning so much! My daughter is so happy to be there and we truly feel like her teachers are part of our family too. It makes us feel so great that she enjoys it so much and she is very well taken care of. As first time parents, everyone was so helpful too with our transition to daycare and all of the updates and pictures from the day help us to feel in touch with what is happening in her day.

Absolute worst place for my grandson to learn. In my opinion Guidepost Chantilly was very…read moredysfunctional at many levels. My grandson was tested at Guidepost and entered first grade for the 2024 through 2025 school year. The mixed level classroom had about twenty-two students, ranging between 1st and 5th grade. In the beginning of the school year there were two teachers, one of which clearly was not acclimated to talking to younger students. Her fast cadence of speaking was incoherent, and level of explanation was not focused at a first grade level. It took six months of meeting with the Guidepost corporate administrator for action to be taken regarding the teacher. The remaining teacher was very in tune with her students and tried her best to teach to the various level of the group. Unfortunately, there were several students in the class with major behavioral problems. Two of the students displayed physical bullying to the other students. My grandson was hit in the head with a stick, breaking the skin. This was inside of the classroom. One student yelled for a significant part of the day, which caused so much disruption my grandson could not focus on the educational tasks. Much of the teacher's day was spent trying to maintain order in the classroom. This was again discussed with the Guidepost Chantilly corporate administrator. The administrator always had an excuse for the incidents and behaviors, with no concrete corrective action taken. When I came at 5:30 to pick up my grandson, I could see a great deal of disarray in his classroom. Papers were out of place and on the floor. Books, educational materials and student belongings were very out of order along with several other things. The classroom was clearly not clean, with visible garbage around the floor. How could this be a functional classroom? One of the bullies in the class was a student of a Guidepost Chantilly teacher. After two months of the aggressive and bullying behavior toward my grandson, I addressed the parent myself. I did this in a very non-aggressive way. The parent put her hand in my face and stated, "I don't want to talk about it" and walked away. The Guidepost administrator admonished me for going directly to the parent. Other parents expressed that this is a trend with this school, allowing their teachers to bring their children and not addressing their students' aggressive and disruptive behaviors. Everyone should be allowed to raise their children how they see fit, but when it impacts other children's safety and ability to learn the problems must be addressed. During the time at Guidepost, we had two parent teacher conferences. At the second conference my grandson was evaluated to be one step past the first conference. We were told he was falling behind and could have a learning disability. The conclusion was that my grandson had learned very little in eight months. We were paying a private school tuition, but he was not getting the education for which we were paying. After the evaluation in late April 2025, we removed my grandson from Guidepost Chantilly and placed him in public school. He was tested when he entered public school at the mid-kindergarten level. In public school, he came home smiling every day. He said no one was yelling all day and he was able to work on his schoolwork. He was not worried about anyone hitting him. This structured environment allowed him to excel for the remainder of the year. He was voted most helpful of his peers and most improved student at the year ceremony. These two awards were from a total of four kindergarten classes, or eighty-five students. He is now in first grade, and we just had the first parent teacher conference. He is excelling in math doing second grade work and is at level for reading and comprehension. We did a tremendous amount of work with him over the summer to bring him to grade level. It is my opinion that if he had a proper education at Guidepost Chantilly, he would not have been behind in his education and not labeled as learning disabled. In my opinion, Guidepost Chantilly wasted eight months of his educational life which is unacceptable. It is my opinion that Guidepost Chantilly is a disgrace and should not have the ability to be called an educational school. Perhaps this is why the corporate parent of Guidepost declared bankruptcy in the summer of 2025. Lack of student enrollment and poor educational ability. Of course, this is only my opinion, I did not waste my time to do the bankruptcy research because I had actual firsthand knowledge.

Our two daughters, 2.5 and 4 years old, attend Guidepost Montessori Chantilly. From the first time…read morethat I reached out to the Assistant Head of School to find out more about their programs, we felt like part of the Guidepost Family. When we needed help with the Financial Aid process, we had assistance the whole way. Couldn't have been more grateful. Our children have flourished under this Accredited Montessori School with Trained Guides. We could not feel more comfortable that no question seems silly or bothersome by the Guides or Administration. As I said, we truly feel welcome and a member of the Guidepost Family. Also, the way they have handled the COVID-19 pandemic has been incredible. Feeling our children are in safe hands at times like these is paramount and we do at Guidepost. Cannot recommend highly enough! We are so blessed to be here.