Jonathan Montessori School

My son was at JMS for two years, and the school was everything I could have hoped for. Randi Shapiro has created the most authentic Montessori environment on this side of The Cities, and his teacher still feels like family to me. My son left the school with advanced basic skills and a confidence that I attribute to his classroom environment. I cannot recommend this school enough.

I have been in the childcare industry for quite some time and if you want a great quality school with fabulous teachers, Jonathan Montessori is the place. We have been so incredibly happy with the overall education and care our daughter receives on a daily basis. In addition, they are always doing community building events to get to know the other parents and children at the school. We feel so blessed to have found a place for our daughter that will play such a significant impact during these crucial learning years.

Just finished a morning of volunteering with parents and children to make the courtyard garden look great for the start of the school year! I posted a picture of the finished product! We had so much fun meeting new families to JMS.
I noticed a post another parent put up about the yearbook. It’s great that JMS has a yearbook! Pictures were taken of the students in the spring, so it’s understandable why the student who left in February was not in the yearbook. The college student who designed the yearbook would have had no idea a student left mid-​year.

I really loved this school at first, the curriculum was a perfect match for my daughter and the teacher that she ended up with was the best possible match that we could have found! The bad part was the school director was very difficult to deal with but when I looked at how well our daughter was doing I just toughed through it. Then we decided to bring our son over who was born with a speech impediment and he didn’t end up so lucky. He ended up with a teacher who is English as Second Language teacher. Those two had a real hard time because of the communication barrier and that caused all sorts of problems. We identified the issue with the school director but she did not make any changes (i.e. Class/​teacher change) to work with that issue. Then one day we receive an EMAIL that lets us know that Mikey will have to find a new program for schooling. Big issue here is getting an email discussing an something so important. It’s already tough having seeing people look at your child differently because they have a disability and then to feel that type of treatment from a «trusted» source was devastating. When my wife and I went in to the school to address the issue, my wife was wound up because it was handled so poorly and our son means a lot to us. The head of the board of directors came into the office as we were back there, didn’t identify herself but just stood there smirking as we are going over the issues. The head of the board was rolling her eyes and making comments that were immature comments throughout the whole thing. I take some responsibility because I didn’t vote but I didn’t realize the level a placement that representative would be part of. From my point of view she is a sub-​par candidate for the level of participation.
We continued to let our daughter finish out the year because she was in a good place as far as her classroom and teacher and she had been there for almost 3 years but the sad part is that she had 1 more year to go and we had to put her in a new school.
We put our son in a new school that had the same amount of kids at the same level and he has got along fabulously and it has been great for him. It’s so nice to have him be excited to go to school rather than worried about how people are going to treat him.
This was a real let down but we never let our kids know what was going on so they didn’t have to suffer like we did but I don’t even know how it’s legal to do what they do and maybe it’s not but I am exhausted from dealing with these people so after my reviews, I am done.