H.U.S.D. - Elona P. Cooley Early Childhood Dev. Center/Cooley Middle Sch

Our family loves the Elona P. Cooley Early Childhood Development Center and we have nothing but amazing things to say about everyone who we have interacted with here. From the time you enter, Mrs. Michelle and Mrs. Mona set the positive energy. greeting almost every kiddo by name (imagine memorizing these?!). The school director, the nurse, speech therapist, the teachers, and the kids club managers are supportive, loving and kind. My daughter is always so happy to see any of them and she's always telling me how much she loves her school. We came from another place where she constantly cried and did not want to attend so this center was a breath of fresh air! Each day I feel peace in knowing she is somewhere she feels safe and happy and that is priceless! I am so thankful for this center and I am going to be so sad when we have to move on to kinder! I really wish they did kinder here because we just don't want to leave :') These are the types of places that need to be elevated and highlighted in our community because the work they do goes beyond anything anyone can comprehend, they are literally shaping the future with their emotional regulation teachings, academics and well balanced activities! Thank you!!!

Wonderful experience for my two daughters!! I was sad to read the only negative review. My daughters are interracial and one has a birthmark on her bottom. I made sure I wrote about it on the enrollment form and told the teacher. I have done that with every babysitter since she was born. I know that childcare providers have to report and can never assume anything or they could face prison time. It’s sad that this parent could have spent 5 minutes talking to the teacher instead of blasting them for following the law and protecting kids. This place is amazing and my oldest daughter misses it so much now that she is in kindergarten.

I LOVE this school! Patty Gleason is an amazing leader and we have loved our teachers, especially Ms. Biemfohr. I cannot even comprehend her enthusiasm, endless patience, and energy. I could not be happier with this school. My preschooler has such a fabulous experience every day and is growing in so many ways. I also love the parenting classes offered! It has changed my parenting.

NO STAR! Extremely negative and horrible experience! The worst preschool that we have ever been. If you are minorities, and don't want to be alleged falsely, humiliated and mistreated, avoid this preschool ASAP! It is NOT a minority-friendly place, though this preschool is so called "Early Childhood Development Center", the teachers are unqualified, unprofessional and nescient. The lead teacher, Sarah Beimfohr has early childhood endorsement on her certification, yet she does not have any knowledge about physical features of children around 3-5 years old in minority groups. The assistant teacher named Ruthann Rhoades is even worse - according to her written self-introduction to parents, she had no working experience at all in over the past 20 years, but a stay-at-home mom. My daughter is Chinese, born with mongolian spots on her shoulder, back to the bottom. Ruthann Rhoades called the police and Department of Child Safety that we had child abuse, because both Sarah Beimfohr and Ruthann Rhoades misrecognized mongolian spots to "bruises" on my daughter. Before she contacted the police and Department of Child Safety, she did not make any further observation on my daughter, since we had been there for ONLY 10 days. Neither of them had any communication with us or verification with pediatrician. When I talked to the teacher, either Sara Beimfohr or Ruthann Rhoades showed me an indifferent attitude. We took our daughter to children's hospital to do evaluation on abuse, the doctor immediately gave the diagnosis of mongolian spots. This false accusation put us into huge trouble, and hurt my family seriously. I talked to the director named Patricia Gleason on the following Monday. Patricia Gleason said she had no idea about calling the police, and she knew mongolian spots, but she did not know the teachers had no knowledge on it, stating that they could not provide training with teachers for everything. Mongolian spots are common sense, basic knowledge for minority kids. You have to know about it if you are dealing with early education. The most ridiculous is my daughter was in "Mandarin Immersion Program" that they started this year in 2016. Unfortunately, the teachers they hired have no knowledge about physical characteristics of Chinese children, don't know how to respect Chinese people, cultures or values. Then, we talked to Jennifer Corry from Student Service from Higley School District. Jennifer Corry's words were even more discriminative and unbelievable. She said, "In order to protect all kids, even though your kid has been notated "mongolian spots" on file, we will still report parents to police if we've found suspicious bruises." In this case, it has clearly demonstrated that the teachers has no information, experience, training on mongolian spots, but they will continue to report to police and DCS whenever they like. The implication is that if we send our kids to this daycare, particularly minority kids, please make sure that the kids don't have any birthmarks or mongolian spots. If you have to put your kids into this development center, please be well-prepared to deal with the police and DCS. Teachers' judgements outweigh paperwork from pediatricians. Besides, no matter what races, please confirm that there is no bruises at all on your kids body all the time; otherwise, they will call the police whenever they like. Last but not least, when we talked to Jennifer Corry and Patricia Gleason, we requested that we needed sincere apologies from Sarah Beimfohr and Ruthann Rhoades; however, we have never ever received or heard any apologies or a simple sorry from either of them, even though we successfully proved that they were wrong.

I am so happy with Cooley ECDC! We had previously removed our son from an awful experience at another preschool before signing up at Cooley. At the old preschool my son was moody, aggressive, and overall seemed depressed and not himself over the course of the 6 weeks we attended. The first day home from Cooley and I had my son back. He was so excited and happy! His teacher, Ms. Valek has been amazing so far and very open with communication. She was aware of the previous situation and updated us frequently as my son has adjusted. The experience that comes with Ms. Valek is hard to beat. It is uncommon to have an actual certified teacher in a Pre-K setting. They are teaching the class at a kindergarten level to ensure not only are they ready for kinder next year but that they will thrive. We couldn't be happier with Cooley ECDC and the Higley School District.