Seagull Schools Inc

My daughter has been going to Seagull Kapolei for over a year now and my son just started attending for a few months. Both of them really enjoy it and they have really good quality teachers.
One of the negative posts about Seagull said they don’t teach the kids, but that isn’t true. They may not have a formal classroom setting, and they may not be a feeder school to Punahou or Iolani, but they do teach the kids a variety of things because my daughter comes home from school talking about all sorts of things she learned and it wasn’t by my doing. My daughter has an easy time with «learning» things, but she has a harder time being social with other kids. She prefers to stay next to adults and engage in conversation with them. So one of the great things about Seagull is that her teachers recognize this and encourage her to socialize with kids her own age.
My son is the opposite — a social butterfly. But he has other issues. One of which was potty training. But once he started at Seagull, his teacher assessed that he was indeed ready to really to be trained, gave me advice and encouraged me to be consistent with him this time (I had been trying on and off for a year prior to that)? I listened to her and he was potty trained in about two weeks.
Aside from that, my kids really enjoy the social interaction, the activities, the field trips and the staff. I like that they do serve healthy meals and snacks, and have a no candy policy. I have nothing but good things to say about that school.

I love Seagull for my son. It’s clean and the environment is safe and engaging. This is preschool so I don’t mind my son running around without his slippers or coming home a little dirty. It shows me that my son was being a kid — having fun in a safe environment and he comes home loving school.
There are open houses, parent/​student conferences and an open-​door policy so parents can come in and observe any day and any time.
Childcare is damn expensive in Hawaii. And I know Seagull struggles with the cost of running a pre-​school in the heart of Kapolei. So, I don’t mind and don’t expect every single inch of the school to be perfect. For the small imperfections I gotta give four stars instead of five. And just cause there’s always room for improvement. But in my heart Seagull is a five.
And yes, tuition is expensive. But tuition is expensive everywhere and it could be more expensive. The price at Seagull is not as high as some other schools. Seagull offers financial aid and the financial aid form is one of the easiest I’ve ever filled out.
There is no perfect preschool so don’t expect it to be perfect. But to me, Seagull is as good as it gets. I’m very happy with my decision to enroll my son in Seagull Preschools Kapolei.

My son has only been going here since December but I will say that I am very happy with this school.
My only complaints are that for what you pay in tuition — I do feel the classrooms could use some updating. They aren’t «dirty» but dingy. The dirt the kids track in has made to carpet look kind of gross and they do sleep on those floors. The other complaint is that they let my kid run around outside with no shoes or slippers on. It drives me crazy because he is SO dirty when I pick him up and as soon as I get home EVERYDAY I have to give him a bath before I can do anything else.
The teachers are GREAT, we had some issues going on with my son and when I voiced my concerns to the centers Director «Dee Dee» she was amazing and really put all of my concerns at ease. My son has been going to school setting since he was one but I can say he did learn a lot here in the short time he attended. Another thing I like is that the school is attached to an elderly care center so they often bring the seniors over to be involved with the kids. I feel it teaches respect for your elders at a great age and you can see how much they love it.
The school does field trips and school performances which my son LOVED taking part in. My son will be starting Kindergarten this year at the age of 4, but I do feel he is ready and I do credit a lot of that to this school.
BOTTOM LINE: They are great for what you pay them to do. The complaints I have a superficial and not the worth not taking your child to this school.

We have swimmers here that we pick up as well for our swim classes! nice school, good location, close to freeway cut off ! parking lot a bit small though.. ..

I switched my children out of this school after 3 hours (which we paid almost $ 300 for and never got refunded, by the way). The toys, floor, everything was filfthy and old. The food looked disgusting and so unhealthy… Canned Apples, rice, macaroni with ground beef, and canned veggies. For $ 800 per child per month, I would think they’d have upgraded toys, better food, and a cleaner school. As for the teachers, they were very nice but there was no organization whatsoever. It was too chaotic, (Too many kids for each class?) there was no teaching, there were two kids that cried the whole time I was there, the kids basically played with the old, dirty toys the whole time. When asked if we could bring sippy cups for my children we were told they were just going to have to get used to paper cups. They have sand boxes outside which freak me out. When I think of sandboxes I think of dirty. Although they seem to have it blocked off from cats, I still worry about birds (mites??) and other things that could be festering. Their carpet also looks like it hasn’t been changed since the school opened.
Like I said, the staff is really nice. They looked like they are overworked and kind of like they’ve given up on the teaching thing. Oh, I also noticed quite a few kids who were hacking and had runny noses – which, I know, they are not even supposed to be in school when they are that sick.
I switched my kids to New Hope Christian Preschool. It is clean, there is LEARNING, there is a nice student/​teacher ratio, they do charity work as a school, the kids play nicely, the staff is awesome, their food is both healthy and delicious, they allow children to bring lunches on the days the menu doesn’t look like a child will eat it, they allow you to bring a sippy cup with water (!!!), and they let us use their refrigerator for my kids’ soy milk (the milk @ Seagull School upset their stomaches), they help to potty train your children, and (!!!) the tuition is waaaay less expensive.
Both are eligible for DHS funding. :)