Early Horizons

 

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Naomi'sPromise S.

Mountain View, CA

Things have been crazy around here since I gave birth to my daughter, Naomi, so I checked into this place via their website. Everything looked okay, but when I brought her in to do a tour, I got a weird vibe. I didn't like that look of things, and then I came upon the reviews here.

I am a nervous mom as it is (late-in-life baby), so I was glad to see that others got the same impression that I did. I will keep looking.

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Susan L.

Sunnyvale, CA

My daughters room (9-18months) had a 90% staff turnover in 6 months. There was tension between the staff, culminating in the directors forcing one of the best teachers in the room to leave.  (The directors took sides, and in the parent's opinion, the wrong side...)  The tension & stress in the room was so thick you could cut it with a knife. My daughter stopped developing and didn't want to go to school anymore. They also weren't documenting her food & bottles, so we didn't know what she was eating or when. The final straw was when she didn't get milk all day and came home dehydrated. They also gave her Cheerios for lunch when she has a wheat allergy and I had specifically said no Cheerios. Both days they did this, she had lunch and snacks from home in the fridge. The directors denied this happened, and then started making excuses. My guess is that with the current directors, they're going to have trouble recruiting and retaining good staff. Better options in the area seem to be Appleseed Montessori, Rainbow Montessori, Bright Horizons, Happy Days, and My Dream Academy.

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MyFriend I.

Mountain View, CA

I did a tour of Early Horizons after a friend recommeded it mainly because of the description of their curriculum I found in their website:
We have taken the latest in brain development research, combined it with classic early childhood methods such as Piaget, Montessori, and R.I.E., and incorporated the NAEYC standards to develop this wonderful curriculum.

Well, that curriculum might have been created a long time ago, but what I understood during the tour was that the 2 teachers in a 24 kids pre-K class is creating it according to their education and training and there is a curriculum coordinator that would check it. And the one Montessori influence I've noticed was the free choice based program, but no Montessori materials. And free choice meant that the kids were at circle time, but all the materials they played with before were all around the free choice area ...

The age span of classes is not the broad 2 or 3 to 6 years old. That itself is not that big of a thing, but the kids are transitioning from one class to another way too often for this age I think (there 's a class for infants, toddlers, 2 1/2 -3 1/2, another one from3 1/2 - 4, the advanced one from 4 ...)

And the advanced class was really overcrowded, I haven't seen so many kids in such a small circle anywhere ... And the ratio is just the California law (1:4, 1:12 ...). That's why I give only 2 stars for preschool.

So this school is not a Montessori option, but I kind of liked their infants and toddler program though, especially the primary care person that the baby will bond to (and hopefully parents can talk to directly instead of asking around ...) But again, moving to another room at around 1 year old and again at 2 years old might bring a separation problem for some babies ... Well, I do like the Montessori idea of mixed ages because I've seen it working, my baby was always looking at the older babies as a role model :-)

http://myfriendisyourf...

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