Montessori School-Jonesboro

I am very disappointed in the Montessori School of Jonesboro. According to their philosophy, "The teachers are trained to deal with each child individually..." However, this is not true. My child attended the Byrd House as he started at the age of 2. His main teacher was not trained to deal with each child individually. Any child that broke the mold of conformity was basically a problem in her eyes. My 2 year old, is not made to sit still and be quiet all day. In fact, he has attended other programs with no issue. I decided to remove him from the program after he was able to pull a fire alarm by stepping onto a chair, and then a table, where he actually could have been hurt. My question was "How could he pull a fire alarm without being seen, if he was actually being watched by the teacher?" She often had negative things to say about him, and the school took no responsibility for this happening. At the young age of 2, my child does not even know what the fire alarm is or does. I am sure it was very enticing to my little explorer, to see a big red button on the wall. Instead of taking responsibility a 2 year old was blamed. Furthermore, he had been bitten by another child on 3 different occasions. Two of the times happened back to back, and at that time I had started to question if they were actually watching my child. Their student-teacher ratio is too high for them to actually be working with the children individually. I am a teacher myself, and I would not choose to have 28, two-three year old children in a classroom with only 2 teachers. They say that there are 3 teachers, but one stays in the restroom to help with potty training and cannot be actually watching children in other rooms. We chose the Montessori school because we have had family members attend there as children and love it! But, things have changed and it is not the same. Once the main teacher sees that your child has a personality, she will do everything in her power to try and get that child removed to make her job easier. If you are not a doctor or lawyer, I would not suggest this school for your child. It breaks my heart because the owner seems to be a very kind, caring lady, but there is a disconnect somewhere between the methods she seemed to believe in, and the actual methods that are used.

My son LOVES it here! The teachers are wonderful. They learn new things everyday! Great school!