Primrose School of Imperial Oaks

"We had the pleasure of joining Primrose back during COVID days and it was the best decision we did for our daughter. She made some of the best friends and the teachers and all the staff have been amazing. They are all so welcoming and friendly and definitely an extension to our family. Bittersweet to leave, definitely a great location where I always felt my daughter was in the best care. Thanks all!"

"To say this is the best childcare experience we have had would be an understatement. I am a former early childhood educator, and hold two degrees in child development and education. This place has been so healthy and great for my two children. Developmentally they are doing age appropriate activities everyday and spending lots of time one-on-one with my kids. They send tons of pictures throughout the day and my babies are always smiling. The staff is so welcoming and know all the kids and parents. They speak to both of my children and myself each morning and afternoon at drop off. When we come back from being gone a few days they tell us how much they missed us. The teachers in the rooms have long tenure which shows that they are happy and well taken care of as employees. They care so much about my children, and their communication is phenomenal. I truly feel like we can call them part of our family. We are very blessed to be part of this school, and I feel so at peace knowing I can trust everyone taking care of my children."

"Primrose Schools of Imperial oaks has been so good to my family for over a year now. My daughter has been attending since she was 1, and she is about to turn 3. She just started Pre-School, and she loves going to school everyday. Every morning on our way to school, she talks about Ms. Warren and Ms. Hayes and my daughter is always so happy to see Ms. Warren at drop offs. Thank you Primrose of Imperial Oaks!"

"My son went to this school from the time he was 6 months old until a little over three. He was not expelled, we decided to pull him and I hope to explain why. Primrose is a national chain. It's a franchise school. The model is successful because of consistency and because it makes its owner a ton of money, not necessarily quality. The owners of this specific school own many schools in the area, think a McDonalds franchisee. They seem very hands off day to day operations of their schools. The director hired seems very artificial, there's always what seems to be a façade up in her communications and her son, who attends the school seems to be given special consideration on advancement in order to stay in sync with his friends. The reasons we pulled our son: The school Director assigned two very inexperienced, very young teachers to the early 3 year old's class. We also learned that these two young teachers were friends outside the workplace before being hired and we were informed it was not policy to generally allow this, but for whatever reason it was in this case. We began getting incident reports, as three year old's will and that led me to putting a lot more focus on the teachers, management and operations. What I observed is that the young women teaching his class, specifically the lead teacher in this class was very stiff around the children. No warmth from her, rarely a smile. It's very clear to me she doesn't like her job and being so young, this is likely just a temporary place for her. Also 2-3 old's are testing boundaries, when the school takes away most options for traditional discipline techniques you have to fill that void with a lot of training, at least some basic child psychology to give the tools needed to mold. My observation is that these teachers were completely untrained and unequipped to handle this age group. It disgust me. It enraged me and sealed my decision to explore other schools. Working remotely and living nearby, I asked the school to let me know when discipline was needed so I could drive up. While I would often get long messages from the teacher documenting events, I was only given two opportunities to come up to school. Also, no cameras in class to review footage. Combine this with the inexperienced staff and it's just unacceptable. The owners are hands off and seem to just want these schools to be a money machine for them. The management seems to have some general competency issues and bias, which owners aren't taking care of. For example, due in part to advancement choices by the director my son ended up in a 3 year old class with a large discrepancy of gender ratio. It was around 13 girls to 4 boys, with a teacher seeming to show bias in favor of girls. While in principle there's nothing wrong with gender disproportions, I had a child phycologist explained to me that any minority situation, it could trigger behavior issues for attention. These teachers young, untrained, uneducated, basically minimum wage workers never asking "what is this child thinking and why". On one occasion, my wife witnessed a little girl make false claims about another little girl, teacher did not see what happened but disciplined the little girl. We found our son a new school in Kids In Action. He's been attending for about a month now. A few highlights: More rigid education requirements for staff, cameras in class room to review incidents, external entertainment and activities (water slides, animals brought to the school, etc...), about 5% lower cost! Primrose was founded in the liberal city of Atlanta, GA and you'll find many of their policies reflect those values. Kids in Action is local, founded in Kingwood, TX; not a franchise. The owners are hands on and have conservative values. The school seems to be working hard to loop me in on discipline when needed instead of sending me paragraphs explaining what my child did with nothing actionable on my part. Kids in Action has a gym, a swimming pool, a better playground and focuses on balancing curriculum with letting a kid be a kid."

"My daughter was in pre-k and it was her first time being with other kids. Ms Cabello and Ms Mitchell did an amazing job with helping Elizabeth adjust to her new norm. I appreciate the staff as well, they are all very nice and overall a great experience!"