Marin Horizon School

I was browsing on Unilocal and was quite shocked to see that MHS has received several negative reviews from angry neighbors who are upset over a sidewalk. This sidewalk was recently built to keep residents and MHS students safe on a quite busy street. As I regularly walk on this street with sometimes as many as four young children (we carpool) I was overjoyed when the project was finished and I did not have to grab on to my kids trying to dodge speeding cars anymore. I find it quite inappropriate that some of the residents who were against this project try to hurt the school and its reputation by posting negative and irrelevant reviews on Unilocal.These reviews should definitely be read with a grain of salt as they have little or nothing to do with the education and quality of the school itself.
I speak from first hand experience. We have been a MHS family for almost five years and have been extremely happy there. Our two oldest children have absolutely thrived, both academically and socially. We love the teachers who have been nothing but outstanding. We don’t live in Mill Valley and we spend approx 30 minutes driving each way. While this is exhausting we believe that it has been absolutely worth it. Tired of the commute we initially enrolled our second child in a very popular and more local preschool closer to our house, but having already experienced the excellence at MHS we quickly realized that the two schools were not even comparable. Thankfully we were able to transfer our daughter to MHS mid year where she has been since. We instantly noticed a huge difference in her enthusiasm and awareness. She now started coming home from school wanting to share everything that she had learned. In other words, our experience at MHS has been worth every minute spent on the road and we absolutely want to give this very special school our warmest recommendation.

We had a very poor experience with Marin Horizon.
Our child turned out to be gifted. The first grade teacher has no idea what gifted means. She apparently believes that it means that a child is able to print beautifully and do the same mind-​numbing mathematical calculations over and over again (at least this was the impression I was left with after numerous meetings). A child may be gifted in any number of different ways — and I will readily admit, a very active, curious gifted child can be a challenge for a teacher. But that is one of the reasons we chose initially chose Marin Horizon — because it touted its resources.
Unfortunately when push came to shove, the resources were not available or not provided or the school simply didn’t have any coherent approach. As our child grew bored with the repetitive nature of the first grade work and homework, we sought more challenging work from the first grade teacher. She responded by provided more of the same type of work.
Our child grew extremely frustrated with being asked to find two letter words in magazines (he was reading well beyond that level and actually asked me if he seriously had to find the word «no» and use it in a sentence because it was a «baby» word) and adding 2+2 over and over again (with the only change being that the additional math work would feature two + two bunnies instead of the two + two horses that the other children received). Our child was not fooled by the additional animal pictures and realized that these were the same problems over and over and over again.
This teacher also declined our frequent requests to observe the classroom. We finally had to ask the head mistress to intervene. We then sought a meeting with the teacher and administration where a series of accommodations were promised to keep our child engaged. Some were provided some were not. When we asked about the absent accommodations we were assured that they would not work. When we complained that we should have been told that the school unilaterally decided not to provide the accommodation — we were labeled troublemakers.
When we were told that our child would not be offered a contract for the second grade unless he underwent testing for ADD, and we expended the time and money to subject our child to the testing, and the results came back showing his IQ and all other cognitive abilities were in the 97%-99% range for all metrics, and we provided the results to the school, the school’s head mistress shrugged and told us to our face that Marin Horizon could not provide the curriculum that our child would need. I really don’t think that the head mistress even read the report.
A family with a gifted child, or a bright child, would be better served by any of Mill Valley’s excellent public schools that enjoy substantial parent and community support. Also, in our opinion, Marin Montessori, Ring Mountain or Marin Day look to be far far better options.
But don’t take my word for it, check the school out for yourself. If you are trying to get a pre-​school spot, I strongly urge you to spend at least an hour observing the first grade classroom. If the school balks at that amount of observation — don’t be surprised.

Couldn’t disagree more with these reviews, and I can’t imagine a faculty more dedicated to the best interests of the children they teach than the teachers at MHS!
If you’re really interested in accurate feedback about the school, check out the 12 reviews that have been filtered by clicking the link for «filtered» reviews below.

We absolutely love Marin Horizon School. Two of our three children are in the preschool program with our third starting the toddler program in the 2012. The teachers are incredible; our children truly have passion for learning, a retention of knowledge that I wish for daily, and a hunger to learn more — it’s really unlike anything I’ve seen before. Our daughter can differentiate between Van Gough, Jackson Pollock and Kandinsky, can read, write, knows the continents and what they look like, can count, add, subtract, understands differences in cultures, etc… and she’s 5. Our son is making similar age appropriate progress and learning is fun for him. Both kids can’t wait to go to school each day. I attribute this to the amazing teachers who work with such passion and brilliance that it makes it difficult to look elsewhere for top notch education. The community is supportive and loving. We are lucky to have hired Dr. Luis Ottley, who came from Fieldston Ethical Cultural School in NY. Many of the administrative challenges are on the up and up as is the outward marketing of this hidden gem. If you’re looking at schools, this fall, Marin Horizon School should be on your list. I assure you you won’t be disappointed.

MHS is a fantastic school to say the least. My husband I are teachers with graduate degrees. We have taught at and attended several independent Marin/​East coast schools. We have very high standards for our children’s education. This is a safe, nurturing school that my kids feel a part of. The basis for all learning is interest. The way the teachers deliver challenging curriculum in creative, multi-​sensory approaches is unique. I also feel very comfortable in the parent community. The parent body is unpretentious. My children have been very supported and are growing up into compassionate, interesting and community oriented people. I credit the school. I think it is Marin County’s best.

I have been at MHS for 4 years and feel it has placed our oldest child into a realm of academic excellence, at a least a year beyond her peers in the public school she now attends. The environment is warm and nurturing and the curriculum is engaging, creative and highly participatory with the children. The school may not have the extensive facilities that other private schools have, but it makes up for it with an environment and way of educating that stands apart.
That said, choosing an educational environment for your child is a highly subjective process. This school may not be for everyone, but given my experience it gives an extraordinary amount to the children, teaches learning in a creative way that excels learning (in our experience that is) and has an outstanding parent community that ‘keeps it real’. I am a huge fan of this school and I think that it is subject to a lot of unfair criticism. This is very much many people’s ‘cup of tea’. Also, it must be noted many people attend the lower school with no intention of staying; they have already decided to move onto other private schools come Kindergarten.
I am a strong believer that the new head is not only an outstanding individual but a strong leader. He is incredibly engaged with the community and has been in my younger childs classroom at least 5 times since the beginning of the year.
I give two thumbs up! This is an amazing option for an education.

When I think about a school where my children spend the majority of their week, I want it to be safe, I want them to be nurtured, happy, engaged and challenged. I want a friendly, caring community whom we can share good times with or pull together and find support during difficult times. I want the teachers to be approachable, I want to be able to spend time in the classroom and get to know the kids and experience the classroom dynamics. At Marin Horizon School you will find ALL of this and more! It is that special, gem of a school where I take my kids every morning and am greeted by staff and parents with smiles and warm hello’s. It is that caring type of place where hugs are shared with teachers and the teachers are available to the parents. In fact, there have been times I’ve seen MHS teacher’s go above and beyond when a child is struggling with a subject or a social dynamic. I don’t worry about my kids being bullied at this school, because school yard bullying is non-​existent. It is a school that teaches their students about respecting each other and the world around us, beginning at the preschool level where my kids shared conflict at a peace table set up in the classroom. They teach kids to speak up for themselves and ask questions and keep them engaged with a very creative curriculum and instill in them a of love of learning that you just don’t find at other schools. And as my kids get older, it just get’s better and better. My kids absolutely love and look forward to going to school and that, in my opinion, is what it’s all about.

We love the school. Indeed, there are excellent public schools in Mill Valley. For us, this school offered a creative teaching method (not regulated by Standardized Testing), small class sizes to teacher ratio, a quaint and beautiful setting, and a flexible drop-​in aftercare program. The later was imperative for two working parents. After being there three years we have fallen in love with the teachers and staff that work there. When my 5 year-​old runs through the halls, they all know him by name. It has become an extension of home and for us, that peace of mind has been worth the tuition.

A school is only as good as it’s teachers and there are some good ones and there are some bad ones. In kindergarten they were warm gentle and patient, just as you would hope when you hand your babies off to someone else for hours in the day. Unfortunately the 1^st grade was a different experience as the teacher didn’t welcome parents involvement in the classroom. We watched our sons self esteem plummet during the year so much that at one point he rolled up in a ball and wouldn’t participate and had problems sleeping at night. When we tried to discuss the situation with his teacher she couldn’t even look me in the eye while talking to me. I tried to speak to the headmistress about it with another parent but the teacher just got defensive about the fact I went to the headmistress. That being said the other teachers we came into contact with were all very helpful and helpful. We decided that our son could benefit from a «bonus» year to get back his self esteem and become the happy boy he had been, just not with the same teacher so we changed schools.

Visited the school and had mixed feelings by what we saw. There was construction under way for the Upper School when we visited. Of the 5 southern Marin private schools we visited, this one was our second to last choice at the end of our touring.
The school had a tiny campus. The kindergarten kids were rather cramped in their rooms, and the Montessouri program meant that there were multi-​aged classrooms (some may consider that good, but we felt it wasn’t for us). There was very little space, and hopefully they will find some way to expand their campus. This school was by no means inexpensive, so I would have expected more in terms of resources and facilities. I am sorry if it seems like I am putting down the school, but I will not do a dishonest review. This is truly what we experienced, as good as the academics is at a school, it is only part of the equation.
In addition the pre-​school program was very unimpressive. Sorry to offend people, but it was to us — we found Marin Primary and Middle School to have a MUCH better pre-​K program.
Let me put it to you this way, it’s a good school, but the way they market themselves — not what we expected, as they were our first choice before we actually visited the campus.