Montessori Infant Community Of Shady Oaks

They provide incredible care here. Helped my child with many early important life skills, like potty training. A great community to be a part of. There is much love in this place, and these Ladies are an extraordinary team! Communication is one of their strengths. They also coordinate with the Shasta County Office of Education (SCOE), who helped us tremendously with funding care. Impossible not to become like a family here

Just as the previous reviewer stated, Julie is unresponsive, biased, highly unethical—and retaliatory. They claim to be a “school” but operate under daycare licensing. At this point, I am not even sure they are Montessori accredited, as an email I received from the Montessori association clearly indicates.

Let me start by saying that the first two years at Shady Oaks were amazing. We had two wonderful teachers who followed Montessori methods and truly cared for our child and never had any concerns brought up. He made best friends easily and we had hoped to keep him enrolled and eventually enroll our other children and hoped they would expand so they could have Montessori education until high school graduation. However, after our lower elementary teacher left the school, we started to experience significant issues that ended with us quickly pulling him out of the school. Our child, who had thrived under the Montessori approach, suddenly became a target. We were eventually told by a credible source that the owner openly disliked him and others and would often push unfavored children out or bully them into conforming to her desired behavior. Previously, our child loved school, was curious about everything, and excelled in math, often learning lessons beyond his age range. His former teacher encouraged this curiosity and eagerness to learn, which is how Montessori education should be. After the staff change, our child was told he had to stay within his age range for lessons, despite having already completed them. His desire to learn was met with punishment, including multiple time-outs daily, insults, and being labeled a “bad child” until he cried in front of his peers- the friends he grew up with. This led to him acting out, a normal response to being bullied. The staff then suggested he needed to be evaluated for a mental disorder. The occupational therapist who evaluated him expressed concern that the staff couldn’t handle typical child behavior. I also heard of several incidents where other children were repeatedly told they were good or bad children and put in time-out for minor issues that could be easily managed by someone experienced with young children. If the owner doesn’t like you or your child, she may fabricate stories to make you look bad, unless she genuinely has memory issues and blames whoever fits her agenda on any given day. She and her new hires DO NOT follow the Montessori method and have raised tuition prices while reducing schedule options. She also stopped responding to emails when she was asked for previous year’s teacher notes so that we could continue his education at a new school and only supplied ones from the new teacher that only said how bad of a child he was and looked to be written in the same day. My child was not the only one affected, and I am sure there will be more. We had chosen Montessori so that our children could have a love for learning and not deal with the chaos happening in public schools. We paid a lot of money to give our children the best and ended up completely disgusted with what unfolded.

Amazing staff! This is a very solid school and is in a great location for going to and from work. They have a lot of flexible pay/schedule options to work with.

There is so much good I can say about Montessori Children's house. But I will sum it up the best I can. My daughter has attended the school for almost 3 years and is getting ready to graduate from preschool. WE are really going to miss it here. She has gained so much independence, knowledge and social skills in the past 3 years. It is very much different from other schools- I have never walked in to find screaming kids, out of control classroooms or out of control situations. It is a very calm, clean enviorment. I think one of the things I have grown to love is the parent involvment & all the little plus events that happen. From the open houses, silent journey & discover, parent nights (home enviornment), field trips, picture day, yearbook and so many more events & invites for educational purposes the school provides. The only other thing I can say is GO VISIT TOM (the director) or call. He is very thorough in explaining the Montessori way, the school & lessons. Oh and I love that I can show up at anytime of day and view my daughter in class thru one sided glass. They do this to keep interuption down but still offering to parents a way to see their child engaged in activity. WE are really going to miss this school