Reply to Franklin Montessori student age 3 left in Forest Hills Park by teachers today

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Franklin parent here.

Obviously this was an incredibly unfortunate incident, but I, as a parent, was satisfied with the actions Randy took to immediately notify the Franklin community of what happened and the follow up. I have have been running afterschool programs in DC for seven years, and while no one has ever lost a child under my watch, I do know that things like this can happen, and it doesn't make me feel that my child is unsafe at the school.

For those who'd like to know, there was a parent meeting, and it was decided that children would no longer go to the off-site playground. A committee was formed, including many parents, to improve the after care program. I have never gone to the woods with the kids, but they post photos on a class-site, and you can see that the students walk in a line and are wearing the bright yellow sashes to make them hard to miss if a student should go astray. It seems that they have three adults with each two-year old class. It's a wonderful program they offer and I am confident in my son's safety.

I would also like to echo what former and current Franklin parents have said about the quality of the program. My husband and I have been blown away at the care and attention my son receives. We adore his teacher, and are looking forward to him growing there over the years and sending our next child there. For them to shut them down over this would be a shame. Finally, the tuition does not seem astronomical for the service and we are grateful that we can afford it. I don't mind someone making a profit off running a school, but I do hope the teachers are well-compensated, as they are incredibly knowledgeable, hardworking professionals who deserve to make a good living.[/quote]

Thank you for this information - this is very helpful. A few questions to hopefully get more clarity:

1 - What exactly happened that resulted in this latest incident where the child was left behind at the park? My understanding is that this has happened twice at Franklin in a few years - with small children left behind unattended at a public park. In addition to the very obvious safety issues (particularly in light of recent news reports about men in a van trying to abduct children in the DC area), this has to be emotionally traumatizing for the child. How hard is it to take the very minimal procedure of taking attendance at the beginning of the outing and then take attendance again at the end of the outing before they leave the park? My concern is that this does not seem like a difficult safeguard to implement and yet the school has fallen down on this front not once, but twice.

2 - If the children are no longer going to the off-site playground, where will they play? Franklin does not have much outdoor space of its own, correct? Their website talks about their "Beyond the Walls" outdoor education/nature program. Does this mean the Beyond the Walls program is discontinued or are there alternatives planned to expose the kids to nature?

3 - I think a PP had asked this but I did not see an answer. Is this school actually accredited by either Montessori association - AMI or AMS? Or does it just call itself "Montessori"? We had been considering Montessori programs in DC but it is not clear to us what Franklin's actual Montessori accreditation is, or if it has any at all.

Thanks!

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