Carden Academy of Santa Clara

My child attends the junior K program and I must say that I am disappointed in the very simple and non-challenging curriculum. I feel that if I moved my child to public school for Kindergarten, he would be behind his peers because of inadequate Kindergarten preparation. My child even complained that all they do is color, color, color. He is doing considerably less challenging and developmental work here, compared to where he was in preschool when he was three years old. I have to supplement alot at home just to keep him on pace with where he was when he entered Carden. Perhaps my expectations were too high, but for the quite pricy tuition, it is not a good value. On a positive note, the administration is great and very responsive.
—Submitted by a parent

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The Carden Academy is fantastic in most ways: the teachers are great and respond to emails very quickly. The administration is very, very organized and you're never left guessing about something or feeling uninformed. They did an amazing job with the new campus. The after-school care is flexible and affordable, and the activities are a lot of fun. Most of the academics are outstanding. The only criticism I have is that the French instruction is terrible --- really awful, to the point of being a joke. The kids don't learn any French at all, and the class is really a waste of time as it's taught right now. This is really a shame. I would give the school 5 stars if not for French. After years of lessons, the older kids can't even put a sentence together! Other than the French, it's really an amazing school. The kids do lots of writing and read lots of wonderful books. The drama teacher is wonderful and the kids had a lot of fun with the Christmas show this year.
—Submitted by a parent

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My child attends the Carden Jr. K program. My child loves the teacher and kids at school. Unfortunately, the academics are not there. All they do is color. The work that is sent home is all about coloring. There is no reading or site word learning that goes on. I would expect with the amount of tuition that is paid, we would be getting a higher quality of education. My child should start to add and subtract, learn the site words and start reading. Rather we pay all this tuition to have to supplement the work at home afterschool. I feel that there should be more than just coloring at the Jr. K level.
—Submitted by a parent

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We fell in love with the idea of the Carden method and enrolled our son. While we had good relationships with our teachers, we began to discover some serious cracks in the system. Our biggest disappointment was finding that the teacher withheld lessons to some students based on their group at the teaching table, rather than using the group model to provide either additional support or more challenging tasks as the group level required. This meant by the end of they year, all of the children had not received the same base exposure to information. In our case, that meant that our son wasn't challenged to stretch and do more. He was allowed to just float along with his group. We're not even sure his teacher realized his level of reading fluency. Also, while "no homework until the middle of first grade" sounds heaven sent, it makes it very, very hard to get a handle on what your younger student is doing beyond coloring. The administration are nice people, but they lack a strategic plan you would expect to be in place after 30+ years in business. The school is not accredited and the teachers are not required to hold a credential beyond certification in the Carden Method.
—Submitted by a parent

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