Clay Road Baptist Early Child Care

"If I could give this daycare and preschool 0 stars, I would.  We had our children in this daycare for 6 years, and my older son graduated from the CRBS preschool.  We knew the staff and Director (Courtney Royall) well.  Our family donated over $10,000 worth of upgrades to the building including commercial grade glass doors, wood floors for the entire ECP building, mulch for the playground, etc.  We volunteered at book fairs and attended school and church events.  We are strong Christians, and my husband is also a Sunday school class Director at our church.  The Director and staff knew my family, too, and even came to my dad's funeral last year.  We also have close family friends who attend CRB church (and were appalled at the following incident I'm about to share). In late summer 2022, my son went to school on a Friday with a small scratch on his eye from the evening before, and my husband told the teacher what happened and explained the circumstances of the accident.  Saturday morning, just before we were leaving to head to the airport for our summer family vacation, we get a knock at the door and it's CPS.  We were shocked that the school director called CPS over this minor accidental incident.  We invited the social worker in, and he was extremely vocal about how ridiculous it was that the school director called CPS over this, but that all calls have to be investigated.  He gave us a lot of insight, and we were blown away that the school director made such a reckless decision.  I called her on her cell after CPS left and all she could say over and over again was "I understand you're frustrated".  We cooperated with CPS and finally received their decision (any abuse outruled, obviously) 2 whole months after this ordeal began.  We received multiple visits from them and our young children were interviewed with inappropriate questions we were uncomfortable with regarding sexual abuse (this is part of their standard interview with kids).  It ruined our family vacation, as we were all stressed the entire time since it started literally the day we left for vacation.  We had just lost my dad  (and last parent) unexpectedly, and had several other BIG stresses going on simultaneously, so this was an overwhelming final straw.  In addition to our specific situation, we also suffered for a couple years prior to this incident at the hands of the preschool Director.  She was constantly shutting down the school for a week or two at a time any time a child was "exposed" to Covid, and notifying us the evening before we had to find alternative child care.  I spoke with many parents about this, and everyone felt her actions were excessive and disruptive to their family/work life.  She even sent my son home with a 99.0 degree "fever" (which is NOT a fever) for a day and half, without prorating my tuition or even as much as an apology.  As a daycare director, I feel the director should use wisdom and judgment at all times; but the Director of this daycare has exhibited poor and reckless judgment on numerous occasions.  In our specific situation, she should have called us to discuss the situation rather than rely upon a second-hand story from a substitute teacher.  The Director relied upon being a "mandatory reporter", however, the statute states you are only required to report something you BELIEVE is actual child abuse or neglect, and there is no way she actually believed that knowing us as she did.  She exhibited totally RECKLESS judgment and our family suffered as a result.  Of course, we removed our child from the program immediately, and we are now SO thankful to be in a MUCH better school program for him that is worlds apart from CRBS daycare; he has shown immense growth and development over what he showed at CRBS.  Many of the pre-school teachers and daycare workers at CRBS who left confided in me and other parents at how poorly the Director ran things and why there was such high turnover, and that children were sitting idly and being ineffectively "taught"/supervised. I now feel that this may have been a blessing in disguise!"

"We have loved our time at CRBS. Our son started attending at 3 months with their infants program and just finished attending Pre-K4. For his development, we really valued a combination of free-play alongside keeping his mind busy and we really felt like every class at Clay Road balanced those needs really well. We feel like they really put in the work to make sure he is socially adept and kind but he's also now fully sounding out words and very prepared for school (and anyone who has tried to get a rambunctious 4-year-old to focus on letters knows how difficult that can be but he has loved learning how to read with Ms. Ramirez). Lastly, we really valued that they would always try and handle things at school. Obviously, we want to know what is going on in his classes but also know that over the course of a day, there is a lot of course-correction that happens in teaching. In every class, we felt like they would really try and address an item in the classroom before bringing it up to us as a larger issue and it was always done in a caring way. Throughout our time, Ms. Royall and Ms. Straughan in the main office loved on our boy. They looked out for us during school as well as outside of the school (them and their families were our biggest cheering section at Little League this year!). They were a solid, consistently communicative presence during the stress and confusion of COVID and went above and beyond. We were new parents when our son started school and really felt like we grew in our parenting with their support. We are so incredibly grateful for our time with Clay Road."

"We could not be happier with Clay Road. We have had 2 boys go through here (one for PreK and the others from when he was 2) and it is great. The hours are good and they offer flexible options (3 day, 5 day, etc.). They also don't take many holidays (Thanksgiving week, Christmas 2 weeks, and 1 or 2 times where they do teacher training). You get great quality education for what you pay for - both our boys have been ready for kindergarten. Communication from the school is excellent. And you can tell all the teachers really love and care! This is a Christian childcare, so they will learn Bible lessons, verses and songs. In the summer, the older children will also attend the church's VBS."

"Both of my children have attend CRBS for 3 years now! The Early Childhood Learning Center is wonderful; organized, sanitary & my daughter loves her teachers! All the staff know both my children by name & so do most of all the students regardless of different ages and classes they are in! It's a community, full of love and care for your children! I can't say enough wonderful things about CRBS! I can truly say I have no doubt that my children are receiving an excellent education & are in a safe, loving environment that they ENJOY & LOVE! Thank you CRBS!"

"If you live in the Spring Branch area and are looking for affordable private Christian education for your kids, CRBS is as good as it gets! Our family loves CRBS!! My kiddos have been in attendance since my oldest was in MDO at 2 years old. She's now in 2nd grade. My younger son also started in MDO at 2 and is now in Pre-K. We love the Bible based teaching, the small class sizes, the one-on-one attention, and the family feel of the campus. I love that as my 5 year old Pre-K son walks through the campus, the 7th and 8th graders know his name and give him high fives. There is a close knit bond here. We are also members of the church here...the close family feel extends into the church congregation as well. We love the leadership and the families of both the school and the church. As long as the Lord provides, my kids will be attending CRBS!"