Olive Tree Learning Center

We couldn’t be more pleased with Olive Tree. Our 2 boys have attended the Manchaca location for a few weeks now and have nothing but the best to say.

We adore the Olive Tree! The teachers are amazing and this has been the most loving and nurturing school for our children. The directors and teachers have become like family to us, and we have loved every minute of our experience here.

This school is managed horribly. They raised tuition 20% in one year with no real explanation. I would have understood if they were obtaining a food license, starting to provide snacks, or making improvements to the school but this was not the case. They are no longer competitive in the Austin area and are not worth the rate. Since moving schools my child is so much happier on a day to day basis and we do not have to provide snack (extra cost you incur at Olive Tree — about $ 300/​yr if your child attends after school care). I would not recommend this school to anyone which makes me sad to say as we did enjoy the staff — that’s the only reason I gave them a star.

I’m totally shocked to see negative reviews of OTLC! Not that I question their sincerity — where school is involved, there’s no one-​size-​fits-​all.
That said, we’ve absolutely loved our time here and I’m pretty sure there’d be a mutiny in my house if I tried sending my three-​year old elsewhere. The Bouldin location is adorable with a great separate area for the younger kids out front and lots of space in back for the «bigger» kids, including the best playground in the hood.
In my experience, the younger kid program is a little calmer and more structured (babies to about age 2 ½, depending). As a first time mom, I was terrified when I dropped my little boy off on his first day, but the teachers helped me through it and hugged him tight as often as he needed. By the end of the week, we were old pros!
Now that he’s in the big kid class, he’s changed and the program is right there with him. I drop off a (relatively) clean kid in the morning and pick up a sandy, disheveled child with paint on his face, glitter in his hair and rocks in his pockets. But best of all, there’s always a smile on his face and a story about something new he’s learned.
I think the best way to sum up Olive Tree is to say it’s definitely a school as opposed to daycare. The hours aren’t always convenient and you’re going to have to figure out alternative care for all the random holidays AISD takes (they follow the same schedule), but your kid is going to learn and experiment and play every minute they’re there.

Overall, we did not have a good experience at the Olive Tree at the Bouldin Creek location. We found the setting to be very natural and close to home (we are Bouldin residents), but the school environment was chaotic. I believe the student– teacher ratio was not working for my son’s group. Our son is now thriving in a more structured school, with a better staff/​child ratio.
Though my son had many loving teachers, management was unkind to our family. As an educator I can empathize with teachers who are overwhelmed and under-​staffed. However, in my opinion there is no excuse for management to be rude to parents and discriminate against families with whom she does not agree.
Finally, we found the paperwork and billing to be frustratingly disorganized.

After reading other reviews, I thought I should add my experience with Olive Tree since I know I considered Unilocal in looking at schools and the reviews on here don’t reflect our experience. One thing to note is that there are two locations. We have only been to the Manchaca school.
We started our daughter there this fall after moving her from another school. We were looking for a program that encouraged play, creativity, and actively engaged with kids in a variety of learning experiences. The grounds and little school house are great. The kids get plenty of play time, and they have time for art (the messy, creative type), music on Fridays with Mr. Will, Mandarin classes, gardening, yoga, and there’s always something new.
But the quality of teaching staff is the most important to us. They are very engaged with the kids and clearly have developed supportive relationships. I remember one of the first days dropping my daughter off and seeing five kids surrounding one of the teachers who was drawing with chalk and asking the kids questions about what they were seeing. They were all having a great time. I feel comfortable that my daughter is in a fun, caring environment.
Aside from all of that, we appreciate everything they do to create community. They post pictures of the kids in class daily on a shutterfly site with descriptions of what the kids were doing. There are get togethers for the families and they have hosted other events such as a breakfast taco morning at school. I’ve talked to other parents who have been there longer and they have all been very positive about their experiences. I would definitely recommend this school and feel like it has been a great choice for us.

You may want to reconsider sending your children to Olive Tree if any of the following apply:
* you want a strong parent/​school community, where parents are made to feel welcome in their child’s education and on the school campus (And not be shoo’d off the property, as I was numerous times)
*you value consistency in your child’s teaching staff and classmates (they have a very high turnover here of both)
*your child has experienced any developmental delays or has sensory integration issues, and you want them to feel supported/​loved by the staff (and not that they are a burden)
*your child is not fully potty trained (even if developmental delays have been a factor)
*you want the staff to implement strategies and solutions recommended by your child’s occupational, speech or physical therapists to help them be successful in the classroom (if the director doesn’t personally agree with those strategies, they will not be implemented)
*you want your child to attend a school where the administration is open to different parenting styles and strategies
My family had a sad, unconscionable and extremely unprofessional experience at the Olive Tree in 2014. My 4-​year-​old twins were expelled (and never got to say goodbye to their classmates or their teachers after spending the past year together), because of a difference of opinion that I shared privately with the director literally TWO WEEKS before the end of school. The administration takes a «my way or the highway» approach that completely discounts the knowledge, experience and parenting styles of the people they serve.
You can do much, much better than Olive Tree. Don’t be fooled by their folksy, aww shucks, kids-​come-​first demeanor. It’s simply not the reality. In fact, the director will undoubtedly respond to this post with a feigned sense of shock and disappointment, saying that parents are most definitely welcome and ALL students are loved and supported at Olive Tree – but unfortunately it’s just not true. How can you espouse a loving, supportive, child-​centric environment and then eject two of those kids for no fault of their own with absolutely no warning? Actions speak louder than words.
Don’t take ANY chances with your kids. These precious developmental years are much too important. I strongly suggest you look elsewhere.

Our grandson has attended Olive Tree for this past school year. For the first 5 or 6 months they provided a very caring, attentive and supportive environment. In early spring this changed. Our grandson began coming home with uneaten lunch still in his lunchbox and the school claimed that it was illegal to encourage him to eat. However, unfortunately without food he was tired and would often have trouble communicating and would act out from frustration. The director concluded that he had a speech problem and communicated that if he did not see a speech therapist that «maybe the school was not the right fit» for our grandson. He immediately saw a speech therapist and he tested in the above average range with no apparent speech problems at that time.
I believe that some staff members lack skills in redirecting behavior and they tend to diagnose a child with some sort of deficiency to throw the blame off of themselves and their lack of skills. I would not recommend this school to anyone. Children need love, support, kindness, understanding and patience from the adults caring for them. Trying to label a child at age 2 by a school’s staff is not only unprofessional but not in the child’s best interest.