Reply to Anyone familiar with Silver Oaks Cooperative School?

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[quote=Anonymous]I had two kids enrolled at SOCS, one in kindergarten and the other in 2nd grade, I was also on the Board and taught very part-time at the school.  The kindergarten class was a problem and seemed to have issue upon issue. The kids in kindergarten were not taught proper letter forming for handwriting but expected to write multiple sentence journal entries independently; my kid fell into some very bad handwriting habits that we had to work on unlearning.   The school uses the debunked balanced literacy curriculum, this method left my kid way behind in reading.  Despite not being able to read, my kid, along with other kids on his reading level, was expected to do independent reading and research projects in small groups.  Although the school touts small classes with individualized learning, we didn't see much individualized learning in the kindergarten class of 12 kids; all kids regardless of reading level got the same age/ability inappropriate assignments.  These assignments baffled me and frustrated my kid.
There were also issues outside of the classroom with the kindergarteners; although the school has a great outdoor policy and does send the kids out in all weather, they didn't safeguard the kids' physical privacy while the kids undressed and dressed after outdoor play, which was a big problem. 
The Director wasn't much help when I approached her with concerns about the class, at one point yelling at me and telling me that she simply didn't believe me that there was a problem. We ended up pulling my son from the kindergarten class mid-year after I started feeling like there were too many things wrong with the class to fix and nobody to turn to about fixing them. 
My 2nd grader had a much different experience, he had great teachers and a good learning and social experience.  It was hard to have two such different experiences at the same school.   The founders (the Director and President) were not able to run a consistent school and were not readily able or willing to recognize problems in the classroom. I don't think the founders are as organized, knowledgeable, or competent as they make themselves out to be and seem to make questionable decision after questionable decision.
I really wanted to like this school, especially since my 2nd grader had a good experience overall,  it has the right ideas and is affordable  but it doesn't delivery its promises with any kind of consistency and in the end I lost confidence in the school and its founders.[/quote]

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