Rising Star Montessori School

My daughter started Rising Star about a month ago and I am very pleased with her progress. The staff is fabulous. I am surprised by the negative reviews. The school structure, manner of disciplining students, and request for parent involvement are all things every school should consider. My daughter feels like she is accomplishing great things everyday. She is writing her name (she is 3.5 yo), making friends, being respectful, and listening better. Rising Star is not a daycare it's a real school that provides a learning environment based on supervised play and interaction. I'm so glad I found Rising Star and recommend this school to anyone looking for a school that believes in community, child growth, parent involvement, and educational achievement. My husband and I both work more than 40 hours a week and have found the staff extremely accommodating with parent work hours. The extended care program fits our schedules and isn't too pricey. Rising Star (High Street campus) gets 5 stars all the way!
—Submitted by a parent

My two children have been with Rising Star for the past 2.5 years. We chose the school not only because the Montessori teaching method sets in place the fundamentals of a great education, but also since our whole family was warmly received by the teachers and staff. It is a wonderful environment, and comforting that our kids know all of the teachers, and the teachers, in turn, know both our children with or without having taught in their classrooms. We are saddened to hear that some parents have not had the same outstanding experience we found at Rising Star. However, we would highly recommend the school (both Cottage Campus and High Street) to anyone looking for an excellent academic program with great and caring teachers from Pre-K on up to 5th grade.
—Submitted by a parent

Our experience at Rising Star has been very frustrating. We have found it be a very strict demanding environment that is inflexible and extremely self-righteous in its approach. It generally caters to one personality type (pliable, soft spoken and easy going). If your child is in the least bit gregarious, mischievious or intelligently non-compliant, they will struggle to fit in. They are unrelenting in their approach to get the child to conform to "normal" behavior. Our normally happy intelligent outgoing child has been consistently frustrated and shown little improvement in three months. It has also been crushing on her self-esteem. This school is definitely not for all personalities types! Beware!
—Submitted by a parent

Rising Star Montessori is a fabulous school. I have been thoroughly pleased with their program. Overall, its been an extremely positive experience for my daughter, as I have seen her flourish academically and her self confidence grow. The staff is absolutely wonderful , and they genuinely care about the children success.
—Submitted by a parent

I rarely take the time to write reviews online but after reading the last very negative and somewhat vague review, I decided I would offer a different perspective. My daughter has been enrolled at Rising Star for 2 years now and it has been a very positive experience. I have found there is a wonderful community of parents and teachers who genuinely care about all of the children. The kids get along very well, which I believe is a sign of both quality educators and dedicated parenting. I would not rush to dismiss Rising Star as a very good choice of schools in our little island city.
—Submitted by a parent

As a professional in this field, I found Rising Star Montessori School to be a very unpleasant place. I toured the center with a friend of mine and found it to be below my own standards. All of the good reviews make me question if this is that same school that I visit.

Rising Star is a fine little school. My daughter's teachers have been consistently kind, while still managing to educate her. The student interactions are typically gentle, and there is a great deal of (somewhat mandatory) parental involvement that translates into murals on the playground, frequent celebrations, and reading times in the classroom. Great library, good extras like Spanish, Chinese, and usic.
—Submitted by a parent

Rising Star Montessori is a wonderful little school. My daughter has learned so much there it is unbelievable. The teachers are caring and professional. Our teacher, Ms Kim is an absolute gem. She teaches pre K and Kindergarten. She is everything you want in a teacher. I love and respect this school. I am a public school teacher myself, and I am so impressed with the Montessori system I am considering taking some courses for my own professional development. The extracurricular activities there are amazing. They have a music and piano teacher who comes in. They have dance classes. There are shows, and gala's put on for parents, as well as schoolwide picnics. You get a conference 3 times a year with your child's teacher. Wonderful.
—Submitted by a parent

This school has been a great disappointment. We wanted a warm, nurturing environment for our children and found the opposite.
—Submitted by a parent

This is a very structure school and requires a great deal of parent involvement (20 hours parent work hours per year or pay $200). My son who is 3 years old just started in their preschool program. The teachers' high expectation at times seem ridiculus. For example, they expect a 3 y.o. to sit still at circle time. The overall program is okay. I expect to teachers to do more for the money and time in put in.
—Submitted by a parent

Rising Star is a great school. The environment is warm and inviting and the teachers are excited about teaching and they make learning fun. My son has completed the pre-school and Jr. Kindergarden classes and is very excited aboout starting kindergarden this fall. He has already started reading and is a whiz at adding single digits. He is learning spanish, science, plant and animal life, geometrical shapes and lots more. When the staff is presented with a problem, the first thing they do is try to figure out how they can adjust to meet the child's needs. I can't be more satisfied with the education and nurturing my son is receiving!
—Submitted by a parent

Rising Star is excellent at giving children as much learning as their minds will absorb. Classes include subjects such as music, art and speech that other schools have abandoned, and the kids are at least a full grade ahead of public school students of the same age in reading and writing, and far ahead in math and science. Taxpayers are paying more per student for the mediocrity of public schooling than parents are paying for the excellent education at Rising Star. They also have an excellent after-school curriculum for working parents.
—Submitted by a parent