Beth Ami Community Nursery School

We left months ago because the leadership at the school felt outright toxic and minimized the issue of no one even checking our toddlers diaper for two weeks, among other red flags such as our two year old routinely being unsupervised at pick up and zero communication from management for about two months after the regular teacher moved into a different position. We were the first of our friends to leave and we know a few families have left with bad feelings this year. We have remained privy to the outrageous drama between the tone-deaf board of directors and members of the staff who clearly were not capable of the management roles they ended up filling when the BoD was too overwhelmed to do a proper external search to fill the positions during 2020’s shelter in place orders. We received word last week that one school director quit effective immediately due to questionable communication behavior by the Board. The other school director, who has publicly promoted her mask skepticism, went on leave as the dysfunctional situation reached a head and so many teachers had left that at least one entire classroom was canceled indefinitely. The school is in danger of losing its licensing due to a failure to enforce its own advertised Covid protocol, but seems willing to bring back the director responsible for the COVID skeptic culture. As of December 2021. this school should probably close until it gets its act together for September 2022 if that’s even possible. Our own family has since found a great school and realized that the anxiety we felt during our time at Beth Ami was well-founded. We were desperate to make Beth Ami work for our family so that our child could start sharing Jewish holidays with new friends and community. However, now that our child has become very verbal, she has made many comparisons between Beth Ami and her new school, mostly along the lines of “Beth Ami was loud, kids were always crying, new school kids are happy” and “Beth Ami teachers in different rooms because in ratio and I was scared. Same teachers all the time at new school, they are nice.” We think that overall the teachers at Beth Ami were in fact nice but they were clearly stressed and could not overcome terrible management.

Too many pre-schools ask children to do elementary school activities such as looking at a map. I did NOT want that for my children. I wanted them to have some choices in their activities, which would be developmentally appropriate. I got what I asked for at Beth Ami. My children attended the 2’s, 3’s, and 4’s. I specifically remember that my son got several chances to build an inclined platform. He placed toy cars at the top and watched them race to the bottom. This was both educational and fun. The Reggio method encourages teachers to observe children. When you go in for your parent-teacher conference, you will get insight into your child. You’ll get wise advice on what is best for the future. We are not Jewish. The school teaches practices that apply to everyone, eg. apologize if you’ve made a mistake. This is a safe place. When my Dad first came on campus, school personnel approached him and asked why he was there. My children especially enjoyed making friends and visiting the gerbils after school. Their dad enjoyed the challah every Friday.

Beth Ami is a wonderful school!