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August 2023 by Liang J.
My son have learned a lot going to Parkside Joyful Academy. He learned to count in Spanish and in English here. All the teachers are very friendly and he gets along with everyone. He loves following his teacher around and love to play with everyone. Sadly we are in the process of moving so we have to find a new daycare later, but overall this daycare is amazing.
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June 2023 by Francisco M.
My wife and I would like to thank Joyful Kids Academy in helping our toddler Olivia learn Spanish, improve her social skills and communicate more with her words. She has learned a lot and we will miss this place. From our experience the teachers have been Outstanding and Caring. They have earned our level of trust. We consider this place not just a daycare but more of a school. The teachers are caring and committed from what I've observed. It's a safe and friendly environment which we feel Good about. Director Karen runs a Good facility and we absolutely recommend this daycare school center. Thank you so much we hope to come back if the next school doesn't work out. God Bless.
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June 2023 by Madeline B.
My son was kicked out after he moved to the next larger class. He was bit on several occasions and then I learned kids in his class were "playing tag with their teeth". My son has great communication skills and the teachers would ignore him when he tried to talk with them. The staff seemed to be frazzled and past capacity in almost every way. We found a new+smaller environment for him in an in home setting. It took him about a year after Joyful kids to not freak out any time we mentioned 'school' or saw a school - we had almost zero contact with his teachers since they had covid protocol so I don't know much of what happened to make him that traumatized. But Ms Karen seemed to have many gaps in her story and she even mistakenly sent me a text about "telling the parents the truth". It all seemed strange but happy to report my son is doing well.
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January 2022 by Courtney C.
I rarely write reviews but felt I needed to write this one in case there is another parent out there with a similar situation. This school is ok for children who are easy, but is not a good fit for a child who needs any extra time, effort, or assistance. I will start by saying there are good things to the school.There's a great app that allows you to check in on your kid, and they send picturesStaff is generally kind. We had some teachers we loved but there is a lot of turn around. Food is provided (though I wouldn't say it's as "healthy" as they describe it)They have dealt well with Covid protocol, and we felt like our daughter was safe going to this schoolNow for the not so good.Our daughter has a language delay, which makes it hard for her to some times get her desires across. She also (partially due to the pandemic) has some issues with socializing; she mostly plays by herself. This, and her strong will, makes her a little harder than your average child to deal with, but not something that a preschool shouldn't be able to handle. All of this was discussed with staff, and many times we tried to convey what she needed in order to be happy and in order for them to have an easier time working with her. Instead, she was often ignored, and would come home complaining of being lonely, saying things like "want to make it stop", "stop sulking" (a phrase we never used at home), and generally showing a desire of not wanting to go to school.Because socializing was one of our main concerns with our daughter that we had discussed with the staff, I stayed to watch from outside the gate one day after I dropped my daughter off. I watched as they brought her to the playground, and afterward completely ignored her. They didn't ask her how she was, they didn't invite her to join in, they didn't even help her with her backpack. She just sat there completely alone. This is not the way to encourage a 3 year old to start socializing or engage with others. When we brought this incident to their attention they ignored my multiple messages until my husband contacted them, and when we discussed it on the phone they told us "well she prefers to be alone, so we just let her be."In the end, they kicked her out for being too sad and claimed they were not equipped to deal with her. We asked if she bit, hit, or harmed other children and they said no. If you met my daughter, I think you would be astonished that she could get kicked out of a preschool. What it comes down to is that they simply did not want to put the time and effort into making our child happy and growing at this preschool. While the staff was nice overall, they weren't always honest, and they tended to do what was easiest for themselves and not what was best for our child. A preschool should be accommodating to all kinds of children, and three year olds shouldn't be expected to be "perfect" all the time. After only 2 weeks at her new school, we've seen a vast improvement in her development and overall happiness. It is very clear to me that Parkside was not the place for her, and unless your child is very easy to manage it might not be the place for your child either.
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December 2021 by Colette Burmeister
I absolutely love Parkside Joyful Kids! My son goes there. He has been going there for 2 years and his teacher Ms. Pat is so amazing! I am continuously amazed at the consistency she provides. She also really cares about the children in her classroom. Her back to school night was so much fun for the parents. I give this place a huge thumbs up.
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December 2021 by Alexa Perfecto
This daycare is great!!PJA has had a VERY checkered past with multiple directors, teachers and issues over the past 4 years my kids have been there, HOWEVER, since Ms. Karen's arrival, she has been AMAZING and has turned the daycare around a thousand percent!! She has hired on the most amazing, caring and consistent staff to join the veterans that have helped our children blossom over the past couple years and my 3 and 4 year old enjoy going to school every day!
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May 2021 by Jenneth C.
This school is a gem! Such caring staff, great curriculum, spacious and clean facilities, and most importantly I know my two children really enjoy being there. We've had a wonderful experience with PJK the past 3 years and I couldn't recommend it to other families more.
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May 2021 by Lani P.
Our son started going to Joyful Kids Academy when he was only 4 months old up until pre-school. He thrived and learned so much here, much credit to all the caring and dedicated teachers. They have a great curriculum designed to help kids with their social skills (during circle time and small group activities), language, cognitive, sensory, and their imaginative development. They also provided breakfast, morning snack, lunch, and afternoon snack. I appreciated the daily updates with photos thru Brightwheel, which we also used to communicate with his teachers. l also loved all the artworks he brought home! My son will be starting Kindergarten in Fall--we will definitely miss this school and all the awesome teachers/staff.
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March 2021 by James C.
My wife and I moved to Concord and found Parkside for our child to attend.He had been enrolled since 6 months of age and we could not be happier with the care that was given to our son. The only reason why we had to unenroll was because we moved up North otherwise he'd still be flourishing in the programs created by the center.Our child loved all his teachers and they provided us with daily updates regarding his performance. Our family appreciates the foundation we helped establish with the help of Parkside.While I understand everyone has different expectations, Parkside exceeded ours.Thank you so much!
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January 2021 by Borannie A.
My daughter started at Parkside when she was 3 months old and is now almost 3 years old. It has been a wonderful experience. They've done a great job at planning daily activities to keep our little one engaged. Also, it's such a delight to receive photos and videos with the app throughout the week.They had a very wide range of hours but had to adjust during the pandemic. I also really appreciated all the protocols they adopted to ensure safety and cleanliness for all the kids.
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December 2019 by Jon S
I have been putting off writing a review in hopes that their fixes would actually improve things, but somehow they made it worse. The company never stops amazing me at how awful of service they provide. Where to start?First, their handling of drop-off is horrible. Teachers don't greet my child, and basically ignore her. It is often 5 minutes of trying to get my kid to let go of my leg before the teacher even tries.The playground is terrible, it has little rocks, which my daughter is often coming home with a ton of rocks in her shoes. Even though they know it is a problem, they don't check shoes of the kids. Seeing as she pays in the morning, I can only imagine the rocks are in there all day long. She even started to hate wearing shoes because of rocks.They have a high turnover rate, and communicate very little with the parents about how things are changing. I often find my child not wanting to go to school, breaking down, only to find out her teach left a week ago.Lastly, they had a crazy food policy of absolutely no outside food. So if you have even a little snack for you kid from the car, you must wait with your child to eat that food. You can't bring in cupcakes, or snacks, etc.That all said, I will say that my child did arrive home safe, which is basically the bare minimum, but at least they were able to do that.My tipping point for this review was when the director told me that my check-in / check-out wasn't fast enough even though they make no effort to support a quick drop off. Again, really piss-poor service.Update: This place is such a weird place. More recently the Director, which has a policy that no office personnel are suppose to use the parking, but apparently the director feels she can, making an excuse that she might need to drive the kid off (which she isn't legally allowed to do).Not only that, there is a constant problem of people parking in the handicapped spot that are not. The place will not correct those people, and instead post up things that are not problems, like no using cell phones. This isn't a problem, no one is messing around with their cell phones during pick up or drop off. So they ignore real problems.Last point, my kid is still getting rocks in her shoes. The teachers cannot seem to figure out how to check the kid's shoes for rocks, so my daughter could be having rocks in her shoes all day long.
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December 2018 by Jennifer Steven
They have had so many staff changes here; I can't count how many directors and teachers my daughter has had in the 2.5 years I've been here. The lasts set is not my favorite but the location makes it really difficult to change daycare. They haven't replaced her favorite teacher and it's making drop off terrible since the current temporary teacher doesn't greet her when she arrives or assist in any way, so I'm constantly late for work.No outside food is allowed as too many parents were bring in special food since they provide typical cafeteria junk food (spaghetti, pizza, fish stick, etc).Their playground has gravel, which I'm constantly dumping out of her shoes at home.
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December 2018 by Margaret Roberts
My grandson attends PJKA and he enjoys the play but he is enjoying the academics being put in place to prepare him for kindergarten. He is 3 and they have begun the replace playing with academics in the 3-4 class and I think that is awesome. Miss Pat is a vital teacher in making this happen. She and my grandson have connected and just under a month together I can see such a positive improvement in his behavior at home. There is consistency in the classroom, which brings consistency to our home. Thank you Mia Patt and PJKA.
