JNJ Pre-school 1639 West 12th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90015

"We started sending our one-year-old daughter to this daycare/preschool in June 2017. She is loving it and we are loving it. JNJ is a Korean in-home daycare/preschool with kids ranging from our daughter's age to pre-kindergarten. The children are spoken to in English and Korean, which is great for our family because we're Korean-American (or American-Korean according to my husband). JNJ provides homemade breakfast/lunch/dinner. Lunch is the main meal and usually Korean food. They also provide fresh fruit, snacks, and drinks throughout the day. A monthly menu is provided for parents who want it. (P.S. it's in Korean.) The house is gated and has an open floorplan with several rooms, tables, chairs, cots/mats for napping (byob - bring your own blanket), play areas (indoor and outdoor), plenty of toys, singing and learning. We live in the Arts District and I work in the Financial District so we wanted childcare in or near downtown, but downtown facilities are pretty expensive, have long waitlists, and may not provide part-time options. Also, I wanted a smaller daycare because less germy kids :P I found JNJ on a Korean mommy board and cross-referenced it with the CDSS childcare licensing website. The reviews on the mommy website were really great and seemed too good to be true. I made an appointment to visit, where we met the owner/head teacher and saw the kids running around, enjoying themselves. Right off the bat, my husband and I liked the head teacher. She answered all of our questions and gave us an approximate start date (about one month later). Once we were home, I took some time to think. Because it's an in-home daycare/preschool, JNJ is clean, but not sterile-clean like the bigger daycare facilities. Still, the more I thought about the head teacher, the more comfortable I felt about leaving our daughter with her. Besides, I figured the less-than-sterile conditions would make our daughter stronger and healthier. The week before our daughter's start date, we visited JNJ one more time during lunch. Our daughter had fun eating, watching everyone and exploring. Then it was D-day. I cried after we dropped our daughter off and I cried at my desk at work. But i was sent pictures of how our daughter was doing and felt better. By the last day that week, our daughter had napped on her own. And after about one month, she stopped crying when she was dropped off. Last week, my husband told me that our daughter had gone willingly into the head teacher's arms and smiled, then waved at him. I couldn't believe it. Then, the next day, we dropped her off together. I was sure she was going to cry since I was there. To my surprise, she went into the head teacher's arms, looked back at me and my husband and smiled. When we waved, she waved back. Not one single tear or complaint, only smiles. I understand that every child is different and maybe our daughter was predisposed to adjust more quickly because of her personality (she loves playing and exploring), but because of JNJ and the teachers, the transition went much more smoothly than it could have."