Lingua Natal & Jardin International Preschool

This is a great pre school option if you want your child to be bilingual or even trilingual. They offer spanish, french and mandarin in a fun environment for kids. Our daughter attends Lingua Natal and we are exited that she will be fluent in a second language one day.
Don’t believe the negative Unilocalers, one never even attended the preschool and is looking to vent against someone/​anyone and the other stopped by on a bad day and didn’t get the red carpet treatment. Neither review says anything about the actual teaching at Lingua Natal which is excellent. And the owner gave a personal reply to each review, what more could you want?!

My son attended preschool here when they were located in Solana Beach. We both loved it very much. The teachers are warm, patient, and made my very anxious toddler feel right at home. In addition, his Spanish comprehension after 2 years was incredible!
It’s very important to me that my kids speak and understand Spanish because I have family that doesn’t speak any English.
I’m looking forward to January when I will be enrolling my second child.

The director was rude over the phone when I was inquiring about their summer camp. I took it as maybe she was having a bad day and was really busy. Then I stopped at the school and could see the preschool kids playing outside with one young adult. She did not hear the cowbell ring as she was by herself with several kids. I was surprised by the ratio. The director came out finally. Ordered my daughter and I not to cross a red line. Said she would be back. Several minutes later came back and told us it is not a good day and I could get information on the website. Parents and children only take tours if they are going to enroll in the preschool. I found it odd that the kids are outside yet she couldn’t show me the classroom. There is no way I would enroll my children into a place where you could only view the inside from the website.

Lingua Natal teaches in various schools in the Encinitas school district. El Camino Creek is one of them, and that where my son attends Kindergarten. My son attended Spanish class with Lingua Natal at the school at the beginning of the school year and really enjoyed it, but since then, they have never had enough enrollment to continue. I tried to enroll him in every subsequent session, but the classes were always cancelled. The first time they were cancelled, I was only notified the day before and I was told that my check had been destroyed. Later, I found out that it had cleared my bank. I complained and was told that I would be receiving a refund check, but several weeks later it still had not arrived. After much badgering and many unanswered e-​mails, I finally got a refund check months later.
I don’t know why I signed my son up again after that experience, but he wanted to learn Spanish so I decided to give them one more try. This time, it was worse. This time, I enrolled my son in the class (they only do online enrollment) about three weeks early, but after what happened before, I didn’t want to send in my check until I knew class was going forward. I repeatedly e-​mailed them asking if the class was going forward leading up to the day of the first class and I never got a response. Finally I got something from El Camino Creek indicating that it was going forward with their other after school classes, so I sent in my check about 4 days before class was to start. Since I mailed it locally, it most likely arrived one or two days later, so definitely before the start of class. My son was really excited it was finally going again after not having Spanish since the beginning of the year.
On the first day of class, his teacher took him to the lunch tables to wait for his teacher. A half an hour later, he was still waiting. Finally he went to the office where they called home to tell us that nobody ever showed up to teach the class and nobody had notified the school that class was cancelled. I immediately called Lingua Natal to find out what happened and I was told that my son wasn’t enrolled and had never paid. I explained that I knew he was enrolled since their online system sent me a response thanking me for my enrollment. They asked what day I enrolled him, and when I told them, they were like, oh yeah, I guess you did. Nobody noticed his enrollment. Then they accused me of not paying. I explained that payment was sent in 4 days ago and it should have been received. Then I was told that, actually, they didn’t know if he had been received because they had not checked their mail in at least 2 days. Then, when they realized this was all their fault, they apologized and said they would check their mail and retrieve my check and destroy it and then send me an e-​mail letting me know. This was 5 days ago and I still haven’t heard from them. So I still don’t know if they have destroyed my check. Of course I will have to check with my bank to see if it has cleared like last time.
I don’t know how the preschool or Spanish classes at their physical location are run, but the way they are running their program at least at El Camino Creek is completely unacceptable. Now my son doesn’t want to take Spanish anymore as he associates it with being abandoned and with a class that is always promised but never actually occurs. This is a real tragedy. I would not recommend this business for language classes, at least not through the school system.