Aquinas Montessori in Mt. Vernon/Old Town Montessori

[Anonymous]

We leaning towards sending our son to a Montessori school. Does anyone have personal knowledge of either Aquinas or Old Town Montessori? Or have children that attend either school? The style of teaching is very appealing to us. Thanks!

[Anonymous]

I type to fast-meant to write "We're leaning".

[Anonymous]

My child is at Old Town. It's a little more rigid than I would like-- uniforms, not a lot of warm fuzzies-- but the teachers are great and I have no real complaints. My little one seems happy, which is all that matters. I am a big Montessori fan: worked well with my older kids too, though at a different montessori school in a different city. My only gripes about Old Town aren't really to do with the content: a) it's just a half-day program for all but kindergartners, so if you would like aftercare, you're out of luck (Aquinas I think has more options but was less geographically convenient for us), and b) because (I guess?) of the semi-urban setting, you pretty much have to hustle your child out of the car and into the line with waiting teachers. They don't let parents walk the kids into the playground area or into the building. I really sort of hate that-- it virtually eliminates the casual parent-parent and parent-teacher interaction I loved at my older kids' former school. I like the OTMS teachers but don't feel very in touch with what goes on there.

[Anonymous]

We had a child at Old Town Montessori and loved it. Great teachers who really encourage the kids, a nice parent body, and fairly strict Montessori (which we liked). OTM is an "outpost" of Acquinas - send your child to whichever is more geographically convenient. Only drawback is that I think class sizes have grown a bit at OTm since they went down to 2 classes.