Jewish preschools

[Anonymous]

We are trying to decide between Broadman-Kaplan Early Childhood Center at Tikvat Israel or the Children's learning center for preschool. Both are in Rockville. Does anyone have experience with either of these schools?

Thanks.

[shelandscott]

Hi. My friends use http://www.broadman-kaplan.org and have used their hebrew immersion program for the past 3 years (2, 3, and 4) and LOVED it

So, of course, we visited for our almost-2 year old, but there is a brand-new director there (Rori) and although she hasn't changed anything yet, she said that she was there to "improve" the school (she seemed to want to make more of a profit through the new day-care and creating wait-lists for all of the classes). What I didn't like is that she said that our child would need to be in the daycare now ($1450/month - outrageous!) in order to guarantee a spot in the 2 year old program in the fall. (Otherwise, she said our child may be in the daycare starting in the fall, because his birthday is after September 1st, so he would be in daycare for an entire extra year at $1450/month unless we signed him up for preschool now). She also didn't seem flexible with putting our child into the 3-year old program even if we signed him up for daycare now, so our child would be in the 2-year old program for 2 years! However, if your child's birthday is before September 1st, this is irrelevant, and all in all I've heard amazing things about the Hebrew immersion program and it is a great school with loads of space.

We then visited the Silver Spring Learning Center. It's playground is miniscule and the classrooms seem much smaller for the number of kids, but the director Debbie has been there for 5 years, is super open and super flexible - She said that if our child is ready, he would definitely be moved up through the years and there even is an extra class called "transition" for the year between Hebrew immersion and kindergarten since his birthday is after the public school cut-off date. What this means is that our angel would get an extra year of Hebrew learning! Plus it's a little cheaper (about $100-$200 cheaper per month), and for us, since we are in Silver Spring, it's closer, too! http://www.silverspringlearningcenter.org/ also has a Hebrew immersion program.

I'm sorry I don't know anything about the Children's Learning Center program in Rockville, but I don't think it has Hebrew immersion, does it? Word on the street is that teaching your kid a 2nd language before age 5 gives huge benefits, so if you want a Jewish education, you might as well get the Hebrew immersion, I think...