<p>You laugh and dismiss this mom as a nutcase, but there are certain circles where this sort of stuff goes on routinely. We moved to Manhattan when D1 was 3 and 1/2, and some parents—lots of parents, actually—told us D1 faced an “uphill challenge” because at 3 and 1/2 she had never attended an elite preschool which would get her into the right sort of elite kindergarten which in turn would determine whether she placed into the proper sort of elite elementary school, which in its turn would determine her chances of getting into one of a handful of elite prep schools which ultimately would seal her fate on admission to Harvard or (gasp!) admission to ANY of the “lesser” Ivy league schools. They advised immediate testing, and lots of it, to see whether D1 might test so high that some elite preschool might be persuaded to take her on as a remedial case, despite her obviously educationally deprived background. At the age of 3 1/2. With highly educated parents who read to her incessantly and exposed her to music, art, even theater from a tender age. And no matter that she was on the verge of having taught herself to read by then, and was having remarkably sophisticated conversations with adults on complex topics, exhibiting a rich vocabulary and pretty much complete mastery of basic English grammar.</p>
<p>After screaming for about 3 days, DW decided she wanted to chuck this whole insane system and homeschool our D1. We have never regretted it since.</p>
<p>(re post #16) – it is traditional in Montessori schools to have mixed age groups, and a fairly high teacher/student ratio, because of the way the method works. It is highly individualized, and well-trained Montessori school will always be introducing each child to the next level up the self-didactic material used. Only a small part of the school day is spent on group activities – usually each child is working independently. In a 3-6 group, the shelves will have material appropriate for the 6 years olds as well as the 3 year olds, and a 5 year old would work with whatever she is ready for. </p>
<p>I know it was a long time ago and you made your choice, but I just want to clarify how Montessori works. The reason they can have a very large classroom is that the kids who have been there since early childhood have pretty much learned the Montessori way – they work independently, they clean up after themselves, they don’t get into conflict with other children --so the teacher really does have time to move around the room working one-on-one with each child, without having to worry too much about classroom management. My son attended a couple of Montessori schools, one very good, one that was not good at all – and at the good one they usually had a teacher plus an aide in each classroom. He started at age 2 so I never paid much attention to where they place him… but the point is that there was no doubt in my mind that whatever he was ready for, he’d be given. </p>
<p>It is a little tricky in Montessori to integrate a new kid into the group, because the “rules” and behavior expectations are somewhat different than most kids are used to. The emphasis is so much on independence that a new kid might really need some catching up time, both in terms of getting used to the system and also getting into the swing of things with the Montessori-based materials. I think people would be amazed at the level of math my son was doing with Montessori-based manipulatives at age 4.</p>
<p>So it sounds pretty appropriate to have a 3-6 year old grouping at a Montessori, and if I was running a school like that, I’d be very wary of putting a new 5 year old in a 5’s room if the other kids had been with the school for awhile. I think it’s a great system for kids, but they really have to learn the ropes. Otherwise they are sitting in a classroom feeling lost, since most of the time the kids are expected to know how to get materials of their choosing from the shelves, how to work with them, and how to go about putting them back in order and putting them away.</p>
<p>Just another note: my daughter was a self-taught, early reader. When she started kindergarten she had a teacher who was new and extremely structured and inflexible in her approach – and uncomfortable with the idea of letting my d. do more advanced work or simply being left to her own devices while the rest of the class was being introduced to pre-reading skills. So my d. was 5, in a group of 5 and 6 year olds, and quite bored most of the time.</p>
<p>But my kid was in day care, and because the K was half-day, the kindergartners would arrive at the day care at noon and be placed with the pre-schoolers. So my d. spent the afternoons with a small number of other 5 year olds and many 3 and 4 year olds. </p>
<p>My d. LOVED day care – every day she would pull books from the shelves and read aloud to the younger ones – something her K. teacher would not allow her to do in class - and my d. also befriended the day care staff, who would teach her and encourage her to progress (for example, offering a book with more complex text). Of course they were happy to have such a bright little helper, and to my eyes, all the learning was taking place in the mixed age environment. </p>
<p>It seems to me that the mom bringing the lawsuit would do better to read a book on early childhood development than to worry about test prep for a 4 year old. It’s not just that her idea of prepping the little one for the Ivy League is nuts, it’s also that it is not good for kids in terms of learning to start teaching facts and figures before they are cognitively and emotionally ready. Play is the way small children learn, and children’s play in a safe and stimulating environment is also the way that their brains get wired so they can learn better as they are older. The large motor / physical coordination / balance stuff is as important as the small motor development and conceptual learning. </p>
<p>Maybe I read too much on child development when my kids were young, but the thing that I took from it was to delay formal, direct instruction in anything as long as possible, in favor of more open, exploratory educational environments. I think for my son the learning pretty much stopped the day he entered 1st grade and was expected to sit for long periods at a desk – little kids also need to move around a lot. (Fortunately his 1st grade teacher got wiser over the years - my d. had the same teacher 5 years later, which I dreaded… but she had really loosened up and there was a lot more freedom of movement and opportunities to explore in her classroom when my d. arrived).</p>
<p>I do want to say that $19k is not a lot at all for part-day pre-school in Manhattan. If this is all-day pre-school (in fact day care) that’s only what, $1500/mo? Hardly a bad deal! I think in Washington State, where COLA is much lower, people regularly pay $400 for private part-time pre-schools, and over $1,000/mo for daycare, and not even elite ones. That’s only what… $5.16/hr? for $1,000/mo. And for $1,500, $8/hr?</p>
<p>Child care does cost more than college. I can’t believe people don’t know that. You don’t pay pennies per hour for your children… I am looking at paying more for my two kids’ daycare for two years (each) than my tuition for grad school. The biggest barrier to my going to college is the daycare cost.</p>
<p>Sorry, am I the only person who finds it absurd to pay that for a preschooler? I don’t care if you are in bum f**k nowhere or Dubai. Stupid is as stupid does.</p>
<p>I thought our preschool was high @ $450/month! We were happy that the school prided itself on being “non-academic,” and emphasized art, social skills and performing in dramas. They learned to love school and make friends. Everything else was secondary, as we felt it should be. None of the kids had any trouble getting into whatever school their folks wanted them to attend next.</p>
<p>Wow.
Our son, now 24 (have things REALLY changed that much?), attended a church run preschool at 3 and 4 years old. Half day, very inexpensive. AND we are not members of that church. Son enjoyed playing with the other kids, participated in some cool Easter ‘plays’ and loved the classic birthday parties he was invited to. Teenage Mutant Ninja turtles were the focus of his life.
Moved onto our public full day suburban kindergarten.
Now finishing his Masters on scholarship.</p>
<p>We did have the luxury of not needing childcare as DH and I juggled our work commitments to accommodate our two kids. I am happy that they did not have to take standardized tests until about 4th grade.</p>
Recently?.. or way back when your kids were small? (I know your kids are in college – I just don’t know from your post if you are talking about what you used to pay, or what the same school charges now).</p>
<p>I think I paid about $450/month when my son was in Montessori – it was all day, school + day care – but that was in the mid-80’s. I would assume that the cost is much more expensive these days – and in fact I’ve done some checking around for day care costs in Seattle, for my grandson… and it really does look expensive. (I was just curious to know what they might have to pay – right now he’s still way too young for preschool).</p>
<p>NYmom, I agree with you. If I were working in a school’s admission department, I wouldn’t touch a parent who has a history of suing!!! Who would?</p>
<p>This is a New York City phenomenon. The public schools are not very good, and there are limited private school spots. So a whole culture has developed in which admission to kindergarten at private schools is competitive and difficult. </p>
<p>This is not new, either. More than 30 years ago, before I had children, I worked in New York City. I remember my boss – a Manhattan resident – talking about the difficulty of getting a child into private schools and the need to coach her four-year-old daughter before the all-important kindergarten admissions tests. My boss had grown up in a suburban environment herself and regarded this whole situation as ludicrous. But the only other way to ensure that the child could attend a good school would be to move to the suburbs, and she and her husband, who also worked in the city, did not want the long commute that would involve.</p>
<p>Her daughter did well on the testing and got into a good private school (and much later, her first-choice college). But if she had not, that family would have been living in Scarsdale or Short Hills or somewhere else of that sort before the next school year started. And her parents would have spent much of their lives on trains.</p>
<p>This tends to be unique to the Upper East Side. To anyone outside of this world the pre-school craze in that area seems insane but it is how it is done there. $19,000 for pre-school in that area is about the going rate. I helped a family member who lives in NYC make phone calls to pre-schools a few years back…spent a few hours on the one special day ( I believe it is the day after Labor Day) where you can call the schools just for an application. Thought I should have my head examined for participating in that crazy aspect of the process. Not too shocked to hear that a parent has a lawsuit against a pre-school…the whole set up is crazy!</p>
<p>The craziness of competition in Manhattan schools is unbelievable. My relative hired a temp to sit at the phone and make calls for a week just to get applications for the various elite preschools. Unfortunately, her son did not do very well during his testing. Apparently, he is an “outlier” and not a “sharer,” so he was rejected pretty much everywhere. At one school, he loudly told his mother, “I don’t like this place and I want to leave now!” His parents were forced to reevaluate their hopes for his future - perhaps he wasn’t meant for ivy? Washed up at age four, can you imagine? It all ended up fine - he’s now very happy at his little neighborhood kindergarten.</p>
<p>D1 is 21 and we lived in NYC until she was 8. We did the whole nanny and pre-school thing with both kids, and so did all of our friends. We didn’t know many people who sent their kids to public schools. It was often referred to as cost of living in NYC, and many people did move out when their kids got older. </p>
<p>Back then we paid around 12k for 3 hours 3 days/week, and 20K for kindergarten. We needed to put them in the right pre-school in order to go to the right private school later.</p>
<p>We moved out to a suburb because we had intention of sending our kids to a public school. D1 did go to the local public school for a semester, and in our view was in no comparison to what she was doing at her private school in NY, so we made a decision in putting our kids in private school again. Our decision had nothing to do with where they would go to college someday.</p>
<p>My family member made it through the rounds at one particular pre-school in NYC. They did not do well in the parent interview and were very upset! The parent interview at this particular school was…a group interview where all the parents sat in pre-school sized chairs that were lined up against the wall… the pre-school director paced up and down the row of chairs and fired odd & obnoxious questions at the parents and all the parents tried to out do each other with their answers! Family member felt “lucky” that they made it to this step in the process. While this was going on the kids were in a playgroup setting being “evaluated”. My family member & spouse - both are Ivy League educated both for undergrad and graduate degrees. They did not make it into this particular pre-school. They have now come to their senses and moved to the suburbs!</p>
<p>I doubt any college admissions office is going to be googling mom for lawsuits 15 years old. </p>
<p>I dont know the facts, but I am not so quick to jump on the mom. If the school did make representations they did not make a reasonable attempt to fullfill, they should be held accountable.</p>
<p>I love living in a NYC suburb with a decent school system. People move here from Manhattan and don’t blink an eye paying $20k+ in property taxes, as they see that as the cost of sending their kid to pre-school and have a lower mortgage payment than the $6000+ monthly rent for a small 1br apartment on the UES. </p>
<p>The downside is these people have moved to our town in the past 10 years and they are quite different than those of use who have lived here longer. It’s a real culture clash and friends of mine with kids still in elementary school say the PTA has changed drastically. We used to have a cute school fair every June with games and bounce houses. The game prizes were Oriental Trading junk. It was a ton of work and volunteer hours, but the kids one had fun and it netted about $5K to the PTA, with over 50% of the profit from the plant sale. The current PTA executive board has nixed it the past 4 years because it didn’t raise enough money and has moved instead to flyers asking parents to donate and wine/cheese parent-only events.</p>