Mountain View Montessori School

We have been a Montessori family for over 10 years. Every year, I vowed to reevaluate my childrens' educational, emotional and personal growth to make sure this non-traditional school was working for them. Every year, I am more excited about and supportive of this system of learning. Montessori, and Mountain View in particular, have given my children a beautiful, safe, loving environment in which to develop their best selves, balancing both education and personal development. It has given them more than book learning or math and geography facts alone: it has encouraged them to be curious and passionate about learning, while also emphasizing the importance of respect, empathy and personal responsibility. My kids are happy to go to school every day. MVM also gives my husband and I the chance to be a part of a community of really great, involved parents, where I have made many friends and learned so much about parenting. We are extremely grateful that we found Mountain View Montessori School for our whole family.
—Submitted by a parent

The teachers here do not provide any real feedback regarding what your child is actually learning. They tell you that you should not interfere with your child's learning process and should not ask them what they are working on. I find it suspicious that they don't want parents involved in the learning process. They encourage parents to participate in social activities, but want zero parent involvement in the academic process. Additionally, any reasonable questions posed to teachers or administrators are viewed as threats and nonconformity with their program.
—Submitted by a parent

When I graduated from Mountain View Montessori School, I was proud to have received such a great education. I had been there for the continuum, meaning I had spent 11 years there, and had formed great relationships with my teachers and classmates. Not only was it academic, but I had some very unique experiences, such as feeding sheep every morning and going into our greenhouse to pick salad for our lunches. I assure you that the faculty's focus is on the individual while still providing a community setting.

My heart hurts as I post this as Mountain View has been and will always be a source of great pride and happiness for our family and our educational goals for our children. I hear the pain in the voices of the people posting and I am in awe that I could have had such a different experience than they. My children are not only thriving academically but emotionally as well...the teachers have always been responsive to my concerns and any issues have been addressed in a respectful and prompt manner. I have established long time relationships with many families at MVM and although we were aware of families who had left it seemed to be commonly held perception that the program was not a fit financially or emotionally for those families. The majority of people I come in contact with and have had their kids there throughout their preschool-8th grade educational career are grateful and appreciative of the community based education their kids received. I can only say that my experience as a parent at the school has been a positive one and I encourage potential parents to visit the school and form their own opinions. Meet the fabulous teachers and assistants at the school.
—Submitted by a parent

Mountain View Montessori has been an amazing experience for my children!!! The faculty and staff are genuinely interested in each child that walks through the front door and it shows in the way they interact with the children here. My children have been in a three different schools (public and private - due to geographic changes for our family) and this is by far the best experience we have had! The Montessori method is a unique approach to education and produces students with a desire to learn and an enviable set of life skills. Not only is it important to teach our children academics but it is equally important to know how to get along in life. "Grace and Courtesy" is a refreshing foundation that is a core part of the experience at Mt. View. Not only is it an exceptional school but I have witnessed first hand the community it provides for the families especially in a time of need.
—Submitted by a parent

This is our chid's first year at MVM and we could not be happier with the experiences she is having there. Our child has grown in every aspect from her language skills, developing positive communication and respect among her peers, to her academic achievements that she shares with us daily. As a family, we have embraced the Montessori philosophy of education and incorporated it in our home and lifestyle, which is reflected in our daughter's learning experience. This is a school that is not only dedicated to the children's education, but the parents as well. The staff and teachers host regular parent education workshops which have proved very beneficial for us at home and in our day to day life. We are extremely thankful to have MVM be a part of our family and we will continue to support our daughter's educational experiences there for a long time.
—Submitted by a parent

We have been a Mountain View Montessori family for five years now, and have enjoyed the experience so much. While it took a bit of getting used to as my husband and I were both traditionally schooled, I found that through the extensive parent education classes any concerns I ever had were gone once I took the time to see it through the Montessori lens. While I've never had need to meet with administration for concerns about my family, I've always felt the door was open if I needed more communication. The school staff and administration are all open, friendly and helpful and the whole-child approach to education is more than I could have hoped for. I for one am grateful for the fact that I see the school acting only in the best interest of all the children. So thankful to have MVM in my community!
—Submitted by a parent

This is what school should be. We have been part of the MVM community for four years now, and I continue to be incredibly impressed at the wholesome experience this school offers. The thought and planning that underlie every single activity, the calm excitement the children display in the classroom, the art, the music, the sheep, goats and garden boxes outside, the level of involvement the teachers and administrators show, the great people I've experienced the other parents to be, and the fantastic camping trips we've gone on as a community. My son often comes home with stuff that surprises me. Really? Did I draw a cross-section of Earth, complete with lithosphere, core and mantle, on my first day of first grade? Definitely not. I feel incredibly blessed to have my child as part of this school. I often thought of Montessori as a fringe educational model, but I recently learned that it is the single largest pedagogical model on the planet. This is what school should be for every boy and girl. When industrial, production-line, teach-for-the-test education fails, Montessori will provide the model for its replacement. I'm surprised there are not more Montessori schools in this world.
—Submitted by a parent

I am a long-time parent at Mountain View Montessori, and find I must address the previous post. Our first-hand experience with the school has shown that MVM provides proactive and supportive administrative guidelines that address concerns a family may have as their children grow. Many behavioral tendencies are developmental and part of the natural growing process. The Montessori method is the developmentally based and the perfect environment to work through the normal growing experience. On the topic of bullying, I'd direct the previous poster or any other parent with questions to Google these articles which are excellent resources and often referred to for parents who have these concerns:Becoming a Moral Person Through Montessori, and Cyberbullying: The New Bully on the Block. MVM's Parent Education classes and curriculum provide an opportunity to not only receive lessons on the materials their children work with each day, but the entire range of Montessori principles. By providing these classes, MVM brings parents to the fullest understanding of what Dr. Montessori's teachings are based upon. This is one of the many reasons MVM is widely respected in the Montessori community.
—Submitted by a parent

Mountain View is a wonderful school, and we are very grateful that we were able to find a true Montessori environment in Reno. The reason we chose this school is because it is not a traditional school. We have tried both public and private traditional environments and we have found them rigid, punitive, and not inspiring independence and love of learning in our child, as we had hoped. I am amazed that somebody who praises traditional education has chosen a Montessori school for their children. The school administration and the teachers go above and beyond their call of duty to educate parents about the Montessori methods. We love the school, the teachers and the administration, and the dedication and involvement of all the other parents in their children s education. As for the claim that 30 children have left the lower elementary classrooms, that is simply not true.
—Submitted by a parent

What the parent who posted on 10/1/10 doesn't discuss is that they have only had the Montessori experience so they have nothing to compare it to and the children are taught differently and cannot do the work in the traditional way. In other words, my daughter was doing great also within the Montessori system and I was told she was doing complex algebraic equations as well. Unfortunately, because Montessori teaches with materials, rather than the traditional methods that are used in public schools, colleges and in real world business, the teaching doesn't transfer over. Whether or not it comes together is purely speculative on the part of this parent, because until you transfer your child, you simply do not know. Additionally, approximately 30 children from lower elementary were transferred to public schools for the 2010-2011 school year because of the different problems, both academic and administrative going on.
—Submitted by a parent

We've had both of our children at Mountain View Montessori for almost a decade now, and we have nothing but WONDERFUL things to say about our children's education. One is doing complex algebraic equations in 4th grade, and the other has surpassed her older peers in public school by leaps and bounds in all arenas. It's the Montessori process that some who haven't done their research don't quite understand; there's a point where it all comes together. Some children just aren't a good fit. But our experiences have been nothing but loving, attentive and successful at every turn. My husband and I can't say enough nice things about Mountain View Montessori, their faculty and staff. It's a stellar education.
—Submitted by a parent

My child attended MVM for 1 year. During that time she was bullied by other children in the classroom, an activity that was passively encouraged by the inexperienced, passive/aggressive teacher. There was no direction in the classroom, the weekly meetings with the teacher rarely occurred and when they did the children usually left it in tears. We left before the end of the year and were followed by several other families with the same complaint. The administration was unresponsive and was aware there was a problem with that teacher well before the beginning of the school year. I would avoid this school at all costs.
—Submitted by a parent