Does anybody know what is going on with Crossway Montessori Charter School?

[Anonymous]

"only give 37% of $13,900"

that doesn't seem like it would be right. Why would the county give only a % of the fixed PER HEAD funding level for kindergarteners? Also that would be something surely the school would have pointed out very clearly in their public announcement on this - that they were getting only 1/3 of the money for kindergarteners that a regular public school would normally get.

[Anonymous]

In response to the criticism of the Head of School.....

My daughter attended Crossway Montessori for four years and she thrived! I am a working mother and never felt any conflict from the head of school towards mother working or not working. My daughter had an excellent experience educationally and was well prepared for elementary school. My husband and I loved be a part of the community at Crossway as well.

As I am heart broken to hear that the charter did not work out, I know that Crossway Montessori will continue its vision in providing Montessori education to children with much thanks going to the Head of School and her commitment to families and our community.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"only give 37% of $13,900"

that doesn't seem like it would be right. Why would the county give only a % of the fixed PER HEAD funding level for kindergarteners? Also that would be something surely the school would have pointed out very clearly in their public announcement on this - that they were getting only 1/3 of the money for kindergarteners that a regular public school would normally get.

From what I understood at the parents meeting held after the charter closing announcement went out, the school took an unexpected hit in the teachers salaries. Since each teacher has 3,4 and 5 year olds in her class (the montessori primary age group), the county gave her a salary based on the percent of 5 year olds, since the county was funding K. The school had assumed the county would pay her salary in full, since she is a K teacher. Thus 37% of her salary was paid for. Or something like that. The money is definitely fuzzy. Not the administration's strong suit!

[Anonymous]

"From what I understood at the parents meeting held after the charter closing announcement went out, the school took an unexpected hit in the teachers salaries. Since each teacher has 3,4 and 5 year olds in her class (the montessori primary age group), the county gave her a salary based on the percent of 5 year olds, since the county was funding K. The school had assumed the county would pay her salary in full, since she is a K teacher. Thus 37% of her salary was paid for. Or something like that. The money is definitely fuzzy. Not the administration's strong suit!"

The county's position of paying for only kids eligible for K is. 100% reasonable. This is the charter's fault for mistakenly thinking they could include kids not eligible for county school and still act as if they should get the same money as if they were educating all kindergartens. Those kids eho are 5 still need to go somewhere so that is the school that should get the cash.

[Anonymous]

Our son attended the private school at Crossway before it opened the charter school. I could not understand the benefits of having a charter school for Crossway so I am not surprised that it is now closed. The sad thing is that the charter school put a lot of strain on the private school. We, the paying parents, didn't know for sure if our money did not somehow go to pay some of the expenses of the charter school. We pulled our son out of Crossway. I am not sure how many families did what we did but losing a paying family when the school struggled was never a good thing.

[Anonymous]

There is quite a lot of financial funny business going on at this school. The school admin made a lot of claims about funding, but has not provided one iota of evidence to back up their claims. Nor have they been willing to open up their financial records.

Their very culture is closed off and deceptive.

They also have a large amout of staff attrition. While the admin denys it, I've been told that several of the teachers will be leaving this year.

Anonymous wrote:Our son attended the private school at Crossway before it opened the charter school. I could not understand the benefits of having a charter school for Crossway so I am not surprised that it is now closed. The sad thing is that the charter school put a lot of strain on the private school. We, the paying parents, didn't know for sure if our money did not somehow go to pay some of the expenses of the charter school. We pulled our son out of Crossway. I am not sure how many families did what we did but losing a paying family when the school struggled was never a good thing.

[Anonymous]

I am assuming that you "heard" this from the school administration, who has not provided any proof to back up this claim.

MCPS records and documentation shows otherwise.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My impression is that MCPS is not ready to have charters and wanted to run it like a regular ES which defeats the whole purpose of having a charter.There were many issues with funding from MCPS and the charter. There's a reason MOCO does not have charter schools- they don't really want them.

This is absolutely untrue, but it is the line that the school's administration is holding to in order to shift blame away from themselves and the fact that the school has been terribly mismanaged. Crossway knew what they were getting into when when they established the Charter. And while I agree that it was inane for MCPS to approve the Charter in the first place, I do note that they expressed several times concern over the funding, administration, the ability to hold a fair an open lottery, and separation of public and private funds. The Charter was rejected the first time, and was only approved after several promises from Crossway, including that they would definitely be able to cover the expenses of the non-funded children (a sentiment that was reiterated this past July in before the MoCo Education Committee).

In the original letter home to parents about the closing of the school, the CEO blamed parents for not contributing more. Yet now, she is blaming MCPS and has stated that the Crossway Board will consider keeping the school open IF there can be an agreement to allow them more autonomy in their use of MCPS (public tax-payer) funds. It is also worth noting that parents received no indication of any potential for the school to close until it had already been decided.

This is really the just the tip of the iceberg as far as issues with this school.

While I agree that the teachers are good, I also don't think that they are able to give their all to the student, due to constant administrative issues.

I heard that MCPS did not give full funding for the 5 year olds because of mixed age classrooms so the charter only received the % funding of 5 year olds per class- 37%. This made it unsustainable. The charter thought if it had full funding for 5 year olds, it could offset the shortfall for 3's and 4's with fundraising. The charter did not know MOCO would not fully fund the 5 year olds even though Montessori is mixed age grouping and both parties knew that when the agreement was made.

Also public school funds never go directly to the school, the system pays directly. For charters, the difference is that schools have autonomy with how the money is budgeted. So $ that MOCO designates for building supplies can be moved around in a charter. MOCO did not allow the charter that flexibility.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our son attended the private school at Crossway before it opened the charter school. I could not understand the benefits of having a charter school for Crossway so I am not surprised that it is now closed. The sad thing is that the charter school put a lot of strain on the private school. We, the paying parents, didn't know for sure if our money did not somehow go to pay some of the expenses of the charter school. We pulled our son out of Crossway. I am not sure how many families did what we did but losing a paying family when the school struggled was never a good thing.

I'm a former parent too, and I never understood how they were going to pay for the pre k students. I was also dismayed that the school was allowed to operate without a principal and its own board.

[Anonymous]

Any updates on this situation? Will the private program now offer a private 1st grade option in 2014-2015.

I'm moving from out of the area and called them a couple of weeks ago to find out if the "charter" was continuing as full pay, but could not get an answer-- they said someone would call me back, but that never happened.

[Anonymous]

The charter is not going to continue. The school will be operating as a private school. They will be offering 1st grade, and the elementary certified Montessori teacher who will be teaching 1st grade is excellent.

[Anonymous]

Really? Because according to the State website, they are only approved to operate a private Kindergarten. Have they actually applied for state approval to operate a private elementary program???

Anonymous wrote:The charter is not going to continue. The school will be operating as a private school. They will be offering 1st grade, and the elementary certified Montessori teacher who will be teaching 1st grade is excellent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Really? Because according to the State website, they are only approved to operate a private Kindergarten. Have they actually applied for state approval to operate a private elementary program???

Anonymous wrote:The charter is not going to continue. The school will be operating as a private school. They will be offering 1st grade, and the elementary certified Montessori teacher who will be teaching 1st grade is excellent.

I would continue to bug the school and ask. It may take a few tries to get a straight answer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Really? Because according to the State website, they are only approved to operate a private Kindergarten. Have they actually applied for state approval to operate a private elementary program???

Anonymous wrote:The charter is not going to continue. The school will be operating as a private school. They will be offering 1st grade, and the elementary certified Montessori teacher who will be teaching 1st grade is excellent.

I would continue to bug the school and ask. It may take a few tries to get a straight answer.

Do you really want your child at a school that will not give straight answers and mismanaged money?

[Anonymous]

They are abysmal at following policies and providing straight answers. Current parent there, but this is my LAST year for sure. They aren't sure if they will have enough families to make a first grade class and their (excellent!) Teachers are leaving in droves due to terrible mistreatment. I can't think of any reason to recommend attending there, sadly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They are abysmal at following policies and providing straight answers. Current parent there, but this is my LAST year for sure. They aren't sure if they will have enough families to make a first grade class and their (excellent!) Teachers are leaving in droves due to terrible mistreatment. I can't think of any reason to recommend attending there, sadly.

Former parent here. Both my kids went through the entire Montessori program at Crossway from the Nido room through the last year of the 3 - 6 classroom. It was an awesome experience for them in many ways and the teachers they had were amazing.

BUT

The administration was nothing short of incompetent. In addition to all of the issues others have posted about lack of response to messages, lack of info, contradictory info, etc., they also treated their teachers poorly and had a bad track record of huge hikes in tuition for the aftercare program without notice, etc. They were contemptuous of some families' choices (working moms, for example).

If I had it to do all over again, I would pick a different school.