San Marcos KinderCare

Super organized. Somewhat institutional.
I checked this out for a week using a groupon deal. I sent my 3 yr old daughter to preschool after negotiating with the admins for literally just under 3 months! After finally finding a week that was available, I was provided up to 50 hours of childcare– sweet! (BTW, there was an additional $ 100 registration fee that’s not mentioned in the deal)
The facility is fairly large– it has 1 room for infants/​toddlers and 4 for young preschoolers. There are also 3 open spaces for kids 4+ yrs old. Everything is super organized and clean. It’s clear that the organizational processes are well developed and executed consistently. There are signs and classwork posted on the walls, along with pictures of the kids. The classwork seems to have an academic focus– much about the classification of animals and objects, along with some mathematics. Not much artwork.
The center has several fenced outdoor play areas with grass and play structures. They are separated so that each class stays within one area.
The teachers are very nice and made a point to talk to me when I came for drop off or pick up. Usually the kids were sitting at tables building legos or sitting on the carpet for storytime.
The center provides breakfast at 9 and lunch at 11:30 and a snack at 3:00 so parents don’t need to provide any food. There’s a published meal schedule that is provided to parents each week.
Compared to other preschools I have visited, (and my older daughters attended) it seems much more focused on efficiency and less focused on the development of the individual child. If you’re looking for your kids to do lots of artwork and work on their fine motor skills and develop their creativity, you may not find much of that here. But if you want. kids coming home with clean clothes, this is the place.

Very impressed by this facility! The Director, Katrina Greene and the teachers, Ms. Coral and Ms. Abbie have been amazing. My daughter loves them. They made an extra effort to make her feel comfortable and really seem to care about her. My daughter comes home singing new songs that she learned that day and talks about all her new friends. The daily report is very specific and really tells me exactly what happened that day. I was very hesitant about taking my child to a full on daycare, but this facility seems like a family that happens to be very educational and organized. Thanks Kindercare for making going back to work after my second baby, so much easier! We love it there so much that we are going to start our infant there as soon as we need to.

My son was here for only one month. He and I BOTH HATED IT. He cried every time I dropped him off and was crying most of the time when I picked him up. The kids there have dried snot of their faces and my son had dried sauce on his face from lunch which was 3 hrs prior to me picking him up. They say there’s two teachers in the class most of the day but I only saw one overwhelmed teacher. The day I decided to take my son out was when i picked him up and he was bent over on his cot crying and in pain. I asked how long he had been crying for and the teacher, who was busy with potty time, said he just started. His blanket was SOAKED! He’d been crying for awhile. Poor guy was constipated! He was starving everything I picked him up. The teacher was nice but overwhelmed since she was alone with so many kids. My son now goes to Bright Horizons and we LOVE it there.

Disorganized management with little or no communication to parents. Rules vary depending on who you talk to. The teachers do not watch the children. If you want your child to come home with scraps and bumps and bad diaper rashes then this is the place for you. No really do not send your child here. Staff changes all the time including upper management.

My daughter has been going to Kindercare San Marcos for 6 months now. I am an over protective parent and I am quite satisfied with what this place has to offer! So, here goes:
The Good:
I’ll start off with the good. Ms Laura. If you are sending your baby to the infant room, watch out for Ms Laura. She has a natural flair with babies and they all LOVE her.
The staff are friendly and accommodating. They work around your preferences and schedule. Good, friendly people you could safely leave your child with.
The classrooms have a lot of toys and they try to bring in new things to keep the baby stimulated.
The Bad:
The bad i write her will probably apply to every corporate childcare center. Once the second half of the day begins, babies and teachers are swapped. Obviously, the intent here is to keep the teacher student ratios in order. This may or may not trigger some stranger anxiety in babies, as it did with mine.
As the day draws to a close, children of all ages are put into one room for maintaining ratios. This means while your little baby is eating, her food may get picked at by older kids. The teachers are busy tending and talking to parents.
Again, no place is as perfect as home. The center is as good as a daycare can get.

It took a long time and a lot of interviews before we settled on Kindercare. It is a very safe location in a high end Carlsbad neighborhood, but the thing we liked about it at first glance was that it was well kept, nicely maintained and secure.
Now that our little guy has been in there for 6 months, he loves his class and his teachers. The teachers have made the transition very smooth for us and him, and they really care about the kids, and it shows. The classes are interesting, they are flexible with part time schedules, and they really know the kids by name.
I take off one star because we continue to have billing issues with the corporate accounting making mistakes on our bill, but I don’t blame the center itself for this.
All in all, I highly recommend Kindercare La Costa, they are a great outfit and it’s a huge step for me to leave my children in anyone’s hands. They’ve earned it.

After doing many many different observations here
I would NEVER send my children here. the teachers that I have seen here are very inattentive to the children in the classroom, and the teachers make the decisions for the children in the classroom.
after all my child development classes and studies, I’m am pretty sure that children are people too and that even though they are at a young age, they are able to make their own decisions!!!