My thinking is if you send your kid to day care, and trust someone with being a part of the…read moreupbringing of your child, then it had damn well better be a five-star experience. My wife used to work for TN DHS, which is the state agency which among many other things, audits child care programs and rates them. So, needless to say, she knew what to look for and had heard horror stories about the industry going into the search. Child care programs are assigned zero to three stars based on many criteria including education, compensation, educator/child ratio, etc. I am sure most parents don't look into these before packing off their little ones, because there is a rather large facility near my house that is PACKED and is a zero star place - all of this info is public information. So when we started looking for a place to take care of our impending child, my wife who is ultra picky anyway, ascended to a higher plane of selectivity. We looked around a LOT, and there were a ton of differences even between the high-ranked places. We found one place we really liked, but it was one of the most expensive in town by a HUGE margin. Then we found Cheekwood. One of the big differences with Cheekwood was the way they seemed to have people that genuinely loved children as we toured. And by that, I mean it was like the love for one's own child, not just 'people who like kids'. So that really resonated with us from the get-go. Their excellent track record with the state all the way across the board didn't hurt either. Now, 22 months into it, I can say I have been very, very pleased with the level of care this facility has given my son. We started him off when he was around four months, and the staff at Cheekwood has been amazing every day since day 1. We get great feedback on our son's progress and he always comes home with something new he has learned that surprises us. They have also been fantastic accommodating our special religious and dietary needs for our little guy, too. So yeah, Cheekwood Child Development Center is the bomb. It may be tough to get into, but there's a great reason for it.

This is so much more than simply a "daycare". This truly is a great preschool educational…read moreenvironment. My children were much better prepared for school thanks to the great caregivers there. I feel like my time with Cheekwood was a great benefit for my children.

This is our 3rd year our child has been attending Brentwood Montessori Academy. My husband was not…read moreconvinced going into our first year...He said one, maybe two years, but that definitely changed!. The first year, she started to write in cursive...The second year she moved into a new classroom and had several work stations, jobs, and an extra bonus of getting to go to violin class (with only paying a violin rental of $20 a month), and several extra curricular activities that we could add on after school (1 hour extra). Her teachers noticed after a few weeks she was behind on reading a little, and let us know promptly so we could get right on to ramping up her reading...She made a huge turn around! We love this environment of learning. We love that kids are able to be kids, but also learn lots of responsibility and independence. They get to go home and be a kid without loads of homework, although, you can request some learning sheets to be sent home. Now, in our choice to choose Montessori once again, for a 3rd year in 2020, we had a couple important requirements with our choice to go back. We already had an excellent experience so far, but the pandemic and how it was going to be handled at Montessori was key to us continuing. After reading their new policy, we saw that great efforts were made in making the children's environment as normal as possible. This was absolutely critical in us sending our daughter back. They had also placed common sense approaches for keeping kids and staff safe. Because the kids have separate work spaces where they do their individual work, they are already socially distanced. They do temperature checks where my child can be checked with her wrist. They also have hand sanitizing stations (my child is able to bring her organic sanitizer-90% ) and they take the time to keep things extra clean. They have a great system of separating rooms, in case of Covid exposure which really limits the amount of shut downs. This has been brilliant! We have seen the damaging effects of other overly strict policies in so many other surrounding schools (including a lot of depression, discouragement, and lack of learning) so we couldn't be more happy in the way they have handled this so far. Because she is able to go back to school, and not have us home school her, the teachers were able to recognize that she had a bit of a learning disability and we were able to immediately jump on that and get a tutor. One of her teachers actually took the time to educate herself better on her type of disability in order to understand and be able to serve her and some other kids with this issue even better. We would have never even known she had some issues. Now we can save her the heartache of losing her self confidence and falling behind. We highly support Jim Bernstorf and his highly compassionate & knowledgeable staff. We thank them so much for the way they teach the children. Thanks to them, our child can go to school in freedom. As Maria Montessori said, "Let the children be free; encourage them; let them run outside when it is raining; let them remove their shoes when they find a puddle of water; and, when the grass of the meadows is damp with dew, let them run on it and trample it with their bare feet; let them rest peacefully when a tree invites them to sleep beneath its shade; let them shout and laugh when the sun wakes them in the morning as it wakes every living creature that divides its day between walking and sleeping."

Love this school. I have two children who have attended for three years. Competent faculty, caring…read moreadministrators, engaging curriculum. Highly recommended.

Booked a mommy and me course and mommy and me Pilates class. The day of the Pilates class, I showed…read moreup to locked doors. No communication that the class was cancelled. Fast forward to the next week - the day before the mommy and me classes - I emailed them just to confirm it was still on. Thank god I did because they responded that the classes were paused and I'd be getting a refund. I'm still waiting on them to refund the Pilates class to me. Just terrible communication all around.

HIGHLY RECOMMEND! Going to the Hello Motherhood classes each week was SO MUCH FUN for me and my…read morelittle one! And spending time with women who are in the same stage of life as me singlehandedly took away my imposter syndrome about motherhood . I made great friends with people whose kids are at the same developmental age as my own (which is typically SO hard to find). And the speakers who came to the classes are top notch . It's so much more than just classes, it's a weekly chance to connect, shine and grow with other great new mamas. If you have a friend who is pregnant, please GIFT her the Hello Motherhood experience . She will thank you!!

The best daycare my son has ever been to hands down! He's flourished and learned so much in the…read moresoon to be 2 years he's been going here. The staff is absolutely amazing. Very friendly and always willing to help. I love the passion, patience, dedication I see with each staff member towards the parents and children. They have truly become family!

I reserved my son's spot at this center during my first trimester. I called 4 times total between…read moreOctober-April asking a question about payment, and was told each time they'd get the answer from their regional manager and call back. They never called back. I called at the beginning of April to confirm my son's spot in mid May and was instructed to fill out his paperwork the first week of May. I called on April 30th and they had "given my spot away to someone on the wait list" because they couldn't reach me. I received no email, voicemails, ect from them and had confirmed our attendance 2 weeks prior. I definitely felt like just a number to them and ultimately am glad this did not work out, but it caused an immense amount of stress 2 weeks before my maternity leave ends and I have to return to work.

Emily is Very welcoming . She answered every question I had , already making me feel like I chose…read morethe great school for my Nursing Career.

Miss angel is the best I'm enjoying school so far I can't wait to see how my career startsread more

We have been with Cadence for over a year now and remain very pleased with the care our toddler…read morereceives! Her days are full of fun sensory activities, playground time, circle time, and other educational experiences. She is not even 2 and her teachers have taught her the alphabet, colors, and how to count! She eats well at school for breakfast, lunch, and snack! The staff are very engaged and responsive to any questions or concerns you may have! We are very thankful for a safe place like Cadence!

Everything is horrible about this place. Staff don't know how to handle kids much less do they even…read morecare about the kids. There has been abuse and alcohol consumption while the kids were being watched. By "teachers" so the school is already back to be being in trouble again. Seems they just can't stay out of trouble. Director along with everyone else never even told me about my child being abused. Shocking right? Wrong. I wouldn't expect anything less. They were try to save there selfs but a detective told us. A month after it had happened. Do not go here. Nothing good to say about this terrible place and the terrible people.

Our musical theatre loving child had such a poor experience with Act Too Players that he is…read morequestioning if he wants to continue participating in theatre productions at all. As others have mentioned the instructors are often yelling and show lack of care for young performers/their skills/feelings (they don't even bother learning kids' names and rather address them by the roles they are playing). Forget supportive and understanding environment- not here! The audition process is a joke and is not based on kids abilities. If your kid is looking to learn new skills/become more confident that's not a place for you either! Very disappointing experience overall!

Regrettably, our ten-year old daughter's experience with the Act Too camp in the July 2024 in…read moreFranklin, TN was NOT positive. Therefore, we cannot recommend that other parents entrust their children or their family's money to this organization. When my wife voiced our concerns after our daughter was truly reluctant to continue at the camp after just two days, we received the reply posted below from Sondra, which placed the blame back on our child. Suffice it to say, we were very disappointed. And we were rather incensed that the seemingly admitted/acknowledged loud tone of voice repeatedly directed towards our child (as well as the child of family friends' who also signed up to be a student/camper) was excused away as being necessary to "project our voices to be heard" to "move 40 kids on a stage". Really? Seriously? It's not a license to yell at kids. We were looking for a fun, fulfilling, challenging event for our daughter to continue her growth during the summer break. Such was not our experience with Act Too. EMAIL REPLY DATED July 10, 2024: Thank you for the email and we are sorry that [REDACTED] will not be completing the week with us. Honestly, in 22 years of doing these camps, we have never had anyone complain about our space. We give the kids several breaks, but we are a training program and we do dance them as well. The floors we have are dance floors and have a bounce to them to prevent injuries. I'm sorry to hear that she was hurting. Ms. Erica is an excellent teacher and works very hard at having the children feel successful. I'm sorry to hear the she was scared of Ms. Erica- needless to say we are not in the business of scaring children. We want them to love musical theatre. Camp should be fun, but with a musical theatre camp there is work expected as well. Trying to move around 40 kids on a stage can be challenging and at times we all have to project our voices to be heard. I do hope that you both have a wonderful rest of your summer and she will be missed. Because we had a long waiting list for this camp and we cannot replace her spot, we will not be able to give you a refund. Best, Sondra

We are 4 months in at the Academy and things have been working out great. Very professional and…read morefeel that they love and care for our baby well.