LePort Montessori Chantilly

I am so pleased with the progress my 3-year-old has made and the bond he has with his teacher, Ms. Katherine. Since he moved to her class, I have seen nothing but positive improvements and a bond with his teacher that is unbreakable. After a few weeks in Ms. Katherine’s class, my son was almost completely bathroom independent. His vocabulary has exploded and he continues to use more words and more complex sentences. He’s even sounding out all of his letters and reads his customized “book” that Ms. Katherine made for him every night before he goes to bed. He is now focusing on capital letters - I believe that may be an advanced skill for his age. He counts into the teens and he has conversations with his parents and 6-year-old brother that he wasn’t having prior to coming there. I really admire Ms. Katherine’s teaching style. She tries a method 3 times and if it doesn’t work, she tries something else. We communicate almost daily about my son's needs and how we can tweak methods at school and at home. I applaud Ms. Katherine - and the entire LePort team (Ms. Nancy, Ms. Nahida, Chif, and all the other staff) - for being true educators who understand that some children develop at different paces and for being flexible with giving my son the support that he needs. You are an exceptional team.

My daughter, Tina, has been attending LePort Montessori (formerly Boyd) since she was 2 years old. I was reluctant to put her in pre-school so young, but our nanny fell ill for a while and we were forced to look for other options. Tina started in the toddler room with Ms. Katherine's and much to my amazement she had her potty-trained in less than a month! Wow! Ms. Katherine understood all my concerns and was very attentive to Tina's needs and re-assuring me that all was well (and indeed it was). A year later, Tina was moved to Ms. AJs pre-school class (ages 3-6), where she thrived and came home every day with a huge smile on her face. She was there for a year before Ms. AJ transferred to another Montessori location. At that time, Tina was moved to Ms. Melissa's class, where she again started to exceed our expectations for academic achievement and social development. Ms. Melissa H. has one of the mostly lovely demeanors I've ever come across in education -- so patient and calm. Tina missed Ms. AJ a lot in the beginning, but took to Ms. Melissa right away and absolutely loves her. Tina just turned 5 and will be wrapping up her time at Montessori soon to start Kindergarten in the fall. Our experience with the school, teachers and administrators, even other parents, has been whole-heartedly positive. The front-office staff (Chif, Ishwa, Sudeepa) is super professional and very personable. They have always answered my questions promptly and supported any requests I've ever had, including things like checking on my daughter during nap time to make sure she was actually napping - that, and much more. And the head of school, Nancy Kaplan, is a gem, through and through - really cares for kids and her staff. Deeply invested in the school's success - not just going through the motions. Overall, Tina has truly grown a love of learning and socializing that I think will be invaluable for her though-out her academic career. The school has been very accommodating to all my requests for food restrictions (ie minimal sugar, nothing artificial, organic whenever possible), and I observed that they do the same for other children too so there is a consideration and consistency that's not always easy to find in public education. The after-care has been phenomenal too - very loving and caring staff. Tina adores Ms. Balinda and Ms Maria, her after-care teachers. My husband and I have also observed the level of dedication from the head of the aftercare program, Mr. Sam - super kind fellow and really understands kids, not harsh or rushed as a lot of adults are. Just calm and understanding. In addition, the school has been fantastic about offering after-school activities, like ballet, yoga, and soccer. The cost is reasonable for the level of quality in the education, staff, and experience, but it's still a Montessori and a bit more expensive than other private pre-schools or elementary schools (though absolutely well worth it). We live in an excellent school district in Fairfax County so we will be sending Tina to our local public elementary school for K-6, but its a bit heart-breaking as I know she won't get nearly the kind support or independent learning she's gotten from LePort. Still, I'm deeply grateful for the 3 years we did get to keep her in the LePort Montessori program as she's happy, bright, and confident - such a great start for a smart little girl. And my husband and I know that the foundation Tina built at Leport will server her well though-out her education in the coming years. I highly recommend this school. It's truly an exceptional place, with amazing people.

Our daughter just started at Leport Monetessori- Chantilly and we are incredibly impressed with the school and teachers. She comes home excited and really loves her teachers and friends. The whole staff is so friendly and we know that they are taking great care of our daughter. Our daughter is in the Spanish Immersion program and we are so happy with all that she is learning. The transition from our former school was easy and seamless thanks to the wonderful staff. They are easy to communicate with and we love their new system called Transparent Classroom where we get to view pictures of our daughter and learn about the lessons that her teacher is teaching. I would highly recommend this school to anyone!

My daughter, Anna, has been in the toddler program for 8 months now, since she was 18 months old. She is in the same classroom as the negative review above, and I wanted to offer a different, positive experience. I am truly surprised by the negativity in the above review, because we have had such a great experience with the very same people and institution. Our daughter gets speech therapy, some sessions are at school, and both Garrett and all of the teachers I have ever talked to have been welcoming and collaborative. Ms. Laura followed up on the suggestions of our speech therapist, and pretty soon my little girl came home saying thank you, no thank you, please, and help please- possibly the most polite 2 year old I've met. I've seen my daughter grow and develop in so many other ways since she started as well. Early on she was quite a clumsy walker, and not very coordinated in her movements in general, maybe just not paying attention. I mentioned this to Peggy, the PE teacher, and she assured me that she'd pay attention and make sure she had activities to help her balance. Within just a few weeks, she stopped tripping and walking into things. She's now very aware of her body and movements, she loves dancing and jumping, it's really wonderful to see her growing confidence. My son does not attend Boyd because he goes to a Preschool Autism Classroom through FCPS, which is what he needs right now. But there have been plenty of times when he comes with me into the school for pick up or drop off, he's always been warmly welcomed and he smiles big as soon as we walk in the building. Garrett has had a lot of experience with autism, and he's made time to share his experience and knowledge with me, and that is certainly not in his job description. There was also a time when we had a financial issue with the school; we switched my daughter from school day to half day because she wasn't napping successfully in school. We ought to have been charged less money each month, but the amount stayed the same for 3 months- it was a paperwork error. I was patient and persistent, and in the end Garrett changed his schedule, went out of his way to make sure we were reimbursed, and apologized. These things happen in organizations and I thought he handled it really well. (There is a clear cancellation policy with the school by the way, I was told about it when we were registering and I agreed to it. I really can't imagine what the unhappy parent above is talking about.) Anna's has another really wonderful toddler teacher now. Each day I drop her off, she gets greetings and maybe a hug from Garrett or the music teacher, on the way to her room. She is happy to go every day, and it is certainly not glorified day care. She is with educators all day who really love children and who care about children. Boyd is a really great place. Don't let one negative review put you off, some people seem to be inflexible, looking for negativity wherever they go, or seem to not understand that there are limitations on classroom size.

My experience with the Boyd School at Westfields from start to finish was absolutely horrible they should be ashamed to call themselves a Montessori school. All they care for is how much money they can make off every child's enrollment and not the education or family aspect. Since day 1 of my child's enrollment At the Westfield Boyd school, We started to get really upset when my child was starting to whine like the younger toddlers and do things out of the ordinary. My friends and family noticed it as well, so I expressed my concern to my sons toddler room teacher Ms. Laura and she advised me to let principal Garrett know my concern and if he didn't move my son up to primary which were the 3 to 6 year old class, that I would take my son out of school until Mr. Garrett made right on his word to me. He told me every single day that my son would be evaluated and that in March he would be moved up to primary, so again being an unhappy parent I went home sucked it up and waited around until March. March 2015 came around and principal Garrett would avoid me like the plague, because he made a promise and couldn't fulfill it and his excuse now was the school ratio. So then why would you drag me along knowing my kid isn't learning anything and I'm spending over $1500 a month for a school that was more like a glorified day care that my son did not need. So my final talk was with Ms. Laura, my son's toddler school primary teacher, she pulled me to the side and also noticed that Garrett was stringing me along and how unhappy I was, so she suggested effective immediate I pull my son out of school until Garrett can put him in the primary class he needed to be in. So I went home wrote a written letter to the principal stating that I was pulling Elias out of school and my reasons why and I had paid for all the months I was there including Boyd school taking out an extra month on accident and we had to chase them down for the, to return the money because they could care less about who's money they tie up or your child all it is to the director of that school Mary Anne all she care for is the dollar signs! So after writing the email principal Garrett he expressed no concern except for sorry to hear that without trying to remedy the situation. The Boyd school also did nothing on their end to even send a notice or expressing in the email that we would have to pay an additional 3-months if that was the case parents would definitely want to get their money worth and have their child stay in school for the 90 days, but like everything else it was all smoky mirrors with the Boyd school. And to top this all off, with not even one phone call or a letter or billing invoice or a final notice! They will just throw your account into collections right away with ACEI and that'll really put a bad taste in your mouth about their school. So after our 3 month experience with Boyd School for my 2 year old child we are left with paying them over $10,000.00 dollars! I feel that family especially my son has cheated out of from this school!..........Way to go Mary Anne!