Need a San Diego Preschool Recommendation . . .

I have a question for any of you families who live or have lived in southern California (specifically in or around the Rancho Bernardo or Poway area):

Can you recommend some good preschools that your child(ren) have attended?

 We are planning on signing Isaac up for preschool after we move to San Diego for the 2012-2013 school year. (I know, I know -- that's still so far in the future, but I do know that some preschools have very long waiting lists, so I'd rather figure it out now, rather than chance being too late).  We were all excited about signing him up for a Spanish immersion preschool at Valley Elementary School in the Poway Unified School District (PUSD), but when I just went online to find out more details about when we need to start thinking about waiting lists and enrollment, I found out that he will be too old for preschool that year. Although he will still be 4 when the school year starts, kids who turn 5 before December 2nd can’t be in the 4 year old classes at any of the PUSD preschools.

We have purposefully timed it so that our kids, who all have fall or winter birthdays, are the oldest in their classes rather than the youngest, and this has worked out well so far for our older boys. Isaac’s birthday is October 23rd, and our plan is to have him attend one year of preschool after we move to California before he enters kindergarten.

(I found out that there is a special option at PUSD for kids to take a ‘PEPP’ class, which sounds like it’s basically two years of a special kindergarten class for kids who turn 5 between June and December, but the PUSD website says that kids who would benefit from these classes may be delayed socially, not have the needed skills to start kindergarten, are afraid or timid, or immature. And Isaac is none of these things – he would probably do just fine starting in kindergarten earlier, we have just decided that we want him to be older rather than younger in his school classes. So, I don’t think we will be considering the PEPP classes).

We’d love to find a Spanish immersion preschool, but after doing some research I’ve had no luck in finding one that is less than a half hour drive away (we don’t know yet exactly where we’ll find a house, but the plan is to definitely live within PUSD), and that doesn’t cost as much as some college tuitions. So, unless anyone happens to know of an affordable Spanish program nearby, I guess we’re just going to go with a more traditional preschool. The one thing I really want is a preschool, not a daycare (I don’t need to pay someone else to babysit my son – I want a structured preschool program that’s fun for the kids and has lots of learning experiences).

We are looking into Pomerado Christian Preschool, which happens to be the preschool that I attended some 25 years ago (wow, that makes me feel old). But other than that, I don’t know about any other preschools in the area at all.

So if anyone knows of any preschools in the area that I can look into and compare, I’d really appreciate it. If you could tell me what you thought of the school, and what you did or didn't like about it, that'd be really helpful. Thanks!