Centro Primeros Pasos, San Francisco CA

In March 2023, my 3.5 years old son was not properly supervised by the Glen Park Staff and was able to get off campus by opening an unattended sliding glass door, climbing over a deck fence, opening two gates and running away. He traveled alone shoeless down Arlington street, turned onto San Jose Avenue (speed limit of ~45 mph) and was walking solo until a good samaritan saw him, stopped and called 911. This is a very busy street and its hard to imagine what number of awful things could have happened to him if the good samaritan had not stopped to save him.

During this time, PP Staff, at the direction of the school owner and leader Gabriella Judd Cirelli, did not call 911 nor alert us. She also instructed teachers to lie to my father-in-law, who showed up mid-incident to pick him up, that my son was offsite with a teacher, when he was in fact missing. Instead of calling 911, Gabriella sent teachers out to wonder the streets looking for him. He was missing for ~30 minutes. He was returned to the school by the police, at which time I was contacted by Gabriella. She did not inform me of what happened and actually discouraged me from coming to pick him up, but just said there was an incident and police at the school. She told me my son was fine and was seemed mostly concerned that other parents would see police during pickup. I arrived to 3 SFPD police officers onsite and luckily my child unharmed and unaffected by what happened.

Post Incident School Response:
Upon asking to learn what actually happened, I was informed that my son had tried to leave 2 times prior by opening the glass door and walking onto the deck. Instead of engaging him in an activity or locking the glass door, he made a 3rd attempt and was able to get out without their knowledge, til he was already gone. I was shown videos of this by the school. I was not allowed to speak with the teachers directly and informed that I could only communicate with Gabriella. This was concerning to me since Gabriella is not present day to day onsite at this facility. We found it quite upsetting to not be able to have a single conversation with our son's main caretakers.

We had multiple conversations with Gabriella in which she attempted to put blame on us and our child, stating he should not know how to open gates and that the incident in some way was our fault. It was due to this post event gaslighting and the seemingly lack of concern on the seriousness of this event that we immediately pulled him from the school. I reported the school to the CA licensing board, which verified the incident independently, fined the school and required them to take extra training.

We then were left without childcare for over a month while we scrambled to find a new school (we are both working parents) and concerned on what could have happened to our son.

Conclusion:
Be careful with what the school states it offers and what it is actually practicing day to day. Upon reflection, Gabriella created very big barriers between the teachers and parents, wanting to monitor all of the interactions. She conducted all of the annual conferences, but does not interact day to day with each child so can not have actual first hand knowledge of their experiences. She projects a climate of open communication, but any attempts to differ in her opinion are often met with objection.

I truly hope that PP learned from this experience, updated their protocols (not calling 911 for a missing child in your care I believe is illegal), practices emergencies drills with their staff and overall is more open to parent / teacher direct interaction so to create a better school and learning environment. I encourage anyone considering this school to ask about their teacher and safety practices specifically.

Our daughter benefited from early care with Primeros Pasos at both locations (Silver Park and Glen Park) thanks to:
1) amazing, loving and caring teachers - truly exceptional! Quality of spanish immersion program may be better at silver park?
2) beautiful parent community, fostered through whatsapp
3) strong parent-teacher communication facilitated through brightwheel (we love seeing photos within app)
4) calendar/closures that balances teacher prep with working parent schedules
Our daughter has successfully transitioned to montessori after 1.5 years at CPP and we are truly grateful for the loving, nurturing care (and Spanish immersion) our kiddo received at CPP, and continue to refer friends to both campuses.