Oak Park Montessori

"Overall this is a good school in the area to send our little ones to, especially if you care fostering good qualities in our children more than the amount of knowledges/skills they will gain. Here are my view of pros and cons of Oak Park Montessori. Pros: 1. Very nice environment both indoors and outdoors. The big sunny playground with trees and gardening boxes provide a perfect place for little ones to grow and learn as children not just traditional "students". 2. Although we barely had direct communications with the teachers, we can see from our children that their independence, curiosity, creativity, and love of learning are preserved and fostered. 3. Enjoying their childhood as much, little ones were still set with necessary disciplines and borders, such as politeness, kindness, and good eating habit. 4. Compared to other schools we attended before, they do have learned more, in a good way, as a result of the 2nd point. Cons: The biggest problem of this school is the poor communications as everybody complains. So far the teacher-parent communications are completely rely on the director Miss Mary, which is too overwhelming for both Miss Mary and us parents. Lots of problems, such as potty training, can get easily solved if a better communication system is provided."

"We've been sending my (now) 3-year-old son here for about 8 months. When he started, he had a speech delay and hadn't been exposed to any type of formal class or classroom due to the pandemic. Within a month, he was naming all of his trucks and using words like, "delicious" and "excited." He comes home from school singing songs, counting, and pointing out letters and words. Within three months he had a best friend at school. Now, he consistently says "please" and "thank you" and other polite language. While we try to model this at home, I believe he's picked up a lot of this at OPM. He's gotten better at just about everything: speaking, listening, and even eating (he's a picky eater). Since he's a picky eater, I really like that the school provides snacks and meals. It exposes him to different foods and he gets to see his friends and classmates eat the foods as well. I will say that communication with the school can be minimal and slow. We started there during Covid protocols, so I'm not sure what "normal" parental access would look like, but I do wish that parents had more accessibility to the teachers and other parents in the class. It would be nice to discuss progress/issues more regularly with the teachers and be able to speak to parents of other children in the class. However, the convenience of location, our son's overall happiness, and the progress we've seen has been significant enough that we remain happy with the school."

"The management at this school is terrible and the main issue. We did provide honest feedback of what we think the issue is and still they did not care to try something different. It was a mistake from the first day to even consider this school and we as parents should have known this earlier. You want your child to start pre-school on a happy note and to like school. You are not sending them to military. At the end of the day, they are kids that need to have fun. That is my personal opinion."

"Consistently poor communication with unreliable details, with many last-minute cancellations and days off which are rarely communicated more than a few days in advance. Staff are disengaged, and actively avoid interaction with us as parents. Child comes home with a soaked diaper or diaper rash almost all days (they don't change her as frequently as they claim). Definitely seems staff are doing absolute bare minimum to get paid. I don't have worries of direct abuse, as my kid doesn't cry at being dropped off. Possible that terrible experience is exclusive to 'infant class'. Any other Montessori is significantly better, and not necessarily any more expensive."

"OPM has been a great experience for our 2 little girls (4 and 5). They have some behavior issues and the teachers have worked with us and we're seeing improvements. We started in August of 2020 (during pandemic) and the staff has been very diligent in following all guidelines."