Bloom Montessori

Beware of this school. It is run by extremely rigid sisters (as in siblings, not nuns) who brook no divergence from their picture of the ideal "Montessori Child". At age 3 (a year ago) our child went through a period of intense anxiety when dealing with gender identity questions and the injury of a parent in a car accident. Bloom's response was to pathologize the child as a "problem" who was a "danger". When our child requested a pronoun change, Bloom's response was again to pathologize her, request psychiatric diagnosis, and chronically misgender her. It's been clear that for the past year, Bloom has been looking for a reason to expel our child. One day, our child became upset when a parent was a bit later than usual at pickup. Bloom claimed she became "violent" and "dangerous". They claimed she tried to escape the school. They claimed she had to be physically restrained. These claims are preposterous, given that our child is four years old and weighs 35 pounds sopping wet. The staff to student ratio at the time this occurred was 2 staff to 1 student (our child was the only child left at the program). No attempt was made to help our child feel safe. No attempt was made to try to understand or console her. In the words of our child's therapist, "it's too bad the school is so rigid and more space couldn't have been given to work with and address the feelings motivating the behavior." The director of Bloom called us that evening and said our child was expelled, effective immediately. She used this incident to claim that our 4-year-old was a danger to herself and others, and pounced on the opportunity to punish her in the cruelest way possible. This has been devastating to our child, who has had her friends, her school, and her routine ripped away from her for truly incomprehensible reasons. Stay away from this school!