I am also the mother of the 4 year old who got left outside. I have a different view on the school, however. First of all, it is a school. Children are learning constantly, not only about interactions socially, but about music, art, playing, team work, etc. As a psychology major, it is very important to me that my daughter is learning on several different levels. This is definitely the case at Carousel. This is why it doesn't bother me that my daughter comes home messy. She's 4. It happens no matter what we do!

Secondly, my daughter loves her friends there. The parents and children (for the most part) are not pretentious. There are a variety of people from all walks of life and I like that my daughter is learning to get along with all sorts of people and in a wide variety of situations. Yes, she did get left outside. It was terrifying, but they took as many steps as they could to rectify the situation, including firing the teacher (who my daughter misses terribly), and in the last 15 years (at least) that had no happened. They found her less than 5 minutes later, and she didn't even know what had happened.

Bottom line, my daughter is intelligent, learning, growing, and LOVES school. Which makes it MUCH easier as a mother to take her and trust that she'll be okay. :)

I would routinely go to pick up my son from pre-school, and he would be in a classroom with three year olds, or two year olds. Not that interaction with different age groups is bad, but this was a daily thing. I wasn't paying for pre-school for my son to teach the younger kids manners and how to potty by themself.

Some of the staff was excellent, undoubtedly chased away by the hussie they have who works the front desk. Yep, she seems charming enough, but none of my male relatives wanted to pick up my child anymore, as she would continuely hit on them.

If you were a guy going there looking for a date, or whatever she was offering it might be okay, but not for your child.

I??????m a mother of a four year old daughter who unfortunately goes to spend her entire day in that place. Yes I can admit they are playing with kids, give them naps and feed them. Anybody can do that!
One very cold winter day, teacher took my daughter??????s class to the playground and for some reason decided to live my baby girl outside ALONE. I was terrified when they apologized, told me that teacher has been fired and she is Ok. Which is not, children need to be watched every second.
On top of that accident every morning I drop of my daughter dressed all cute, in the nice clothes, neat and clean. At the end of the day you can??????t find a clean spot on her clothes, face is all massy in dirt, hair is filthy. All of that because the owners, decided to cover their playground in hard rocks, all metal swings is not protected in case if the child fell or get pushed on them.
Safety is the number one rule for the daycare facilities. Carousel failed on that one.

I can't believe that someone would actually have good things to say about this so called childcare center. Both of my daughter's attended Carousel as well as my niece and children of friends,we all agreed that this was NOT a safe or clean environment.There were many times when I would pick up my children and they would not have on the clothes they wore, instead they would have on too small, non matching clothes of other kids, when I provided extra clothes of their own. My niece caught a bacteria form rash from her class where there were about 5-7 other children with the same condition. The final straw was when I went to pick my infant up from her room, there was a 8 month old laying on a 4ft changing table unattended and coincidentally fell off onto the hard tiled floor. She was crying hysterically the care giver ran over and picked her up. After being a witness to that horrific scene I grabbed my children, that was their last day at Carousel. I couldn't sleep that night without thinking about how traumatizing that must have been for that baby, was the baby o.k? Did her parents take her to the doctors? Those were some of the thoughts that paced through my mind.The next day I wrote a very professional letter to the head of Carousel stating what I had witnessed. I hand delivered it myself, when asking about the baby's well being the director or any other staff (for that matter) had no idea what I was talking about. The care giver did not even take time to file a incident report better yet; notify the parents. I followed up about a month later and sadly to say this care giver is still an employee at Carousel.

It is rare that you find a preschool that makes you feel confident and secure leaving your small child, Carousel is exactly this kind of place. The teachers are very concerned with your childs welfare and happiness. They have been in their jobs for a while (low turnover rate) and they structure your childs day around activites and learning that is age appropriate and fun. One of the best in Anchorage!