We have had our twin boys enrolled in Smaller Scholars Montessori Academy on Grisby for the last…read moreyear and we are extremely pleased with the school. The environment is very welcoming to new comers. When we joined, we were new to the Montessori program. We jumped into the program mid way and the staff was very accommodating, helping successfully integrate our kids. Our children have excelled in terms of academics & behavior. My 5 year old twins LOVE to read. They are excited about learning and before bed each night, they want to get their books and read to us. The most valuable asset of the school are its teachers. Ms. Monica and Ms. Shila are both tops in terms of teaching. The classrooms are calm and always buzzing with activity. My children love to go to school, even Monday morning! Ms. Fi, the director, is always available to answer questions and the children love her as well. The support staff in the classrooms and Melissa, the assistant, are always friendly, have a genuine interest in the kids and always do it with a smile. I would highly recommend the school.

We enrolled our son at this school and, overall, he had positive experiences with his teachers. He…read morewas always treated kindly, and we appreciate the care and effort that his classroom teachers provided during his time there. Unfortunately, our experience with the administration was much different. When our family needed to withdraw our son, we provided three weeks' notice. We were informed that because we did not provide a full four weeks' notice, the school would retain our entire deposit. While we understand that policies exist for a reason, keeping the full deposit over a one-week difference felt unnecessarily rigid and disappointing, especially given the significant financial investment families make to attend this school. What was most frustrating was the lack of flexibility and consideration for our family's circumstances. A partial refund or compromise would have felt much more reasonable and demonstrated that the school values its relationship with families beyond simply enforcing policies. We also noticed a high amount of staff turnover during our time there. While we cannot speak to the reasons behind it, it was something that stood out to us. Additionally, several staff members we interacted with did not seem particularly happy or supported in their roles, which raised concerns for us about the overall culture of the school. If your primary concern is the day-to-day classroom experience, we had positive interactions with our son's teachers. However, if customer service, administrative flexibility, and financial fairness are important factors in your decision, I would encourage you to carefully consider those aspects before enrolling. For a school that requires a substantial financial commitment from families, we expected a more reasonable and family-centered approach. I will include that administration did offer what they described as an adjustment by allowing us to hold our deposit and apply it toward a future enrollment, and they stated that they would not charge another deposit if we chose to return. They appeared to view this as good customer service and a reasonable accommodation. However, these options were not helpful in our family's circumstances, and the school was aware of the reasons we were leaving. Re-enrolling was not a realistic option for us, so offering to preserve the deposit for a future enrollment did not address the actual issue we were facing. While we appreciate that an alternative was offered, it felt like a solution that the administration knew we would not be able to use, rather than a meaningful effort to work with our family on a fair resolution.

We have one child at St Elizabeth, and have been incredibly happy since we enrolled him there. The…read moresense of community has been beyond our expectation, and we look forward to our two younger children enrolling when they are of age. The teachers are always quick to provide feedback, and there is no guessing on our part on exactly how our child is doing. It really is an environment that emphasizes working hand in hand with us to make sure that the same messages are being delivered both at school and at home. That attention to consistency has really helped in giving our son, and us, a sense of comfort. After moving from the Northeast without a real sense of the area, we were incredibly blessed to come upon this school, as well as this parish. St. Elizabeth Ann Seton comes with our highest recommendation.

My child experienced a lack of sense of safety at this school due to the administration not being…read moreable to handle a problem. This school also has teachers who my child and many others have said to be "total nuts" due to the way some of these teachers use their class time. My son came home saying how his teacher was doing "ballet" and "writing with one leg in the air". This was upsetting to hear considering how much respect i had for this school. In these past few years i have lost lost of respect towards this place.

We are beginning our eighth year at the school with our three children enrolled, and our family…read morecould not be happier. The school has had a tremendous impact on our children's spiritual and academic growth and has deepened our Christian faith as a family. One of the highlights is the first-period Bible study, which focuses on various chapters of Scripture. It sets a meaningful tone for the day and grounds the students in truth. As a hybrid model, the school does require parental involvement in overseeing your child's work. It's allowed me to read many of the classic works I missed growing up. The curriculum is thoughtfully selected by the administration and is excellent. I've also had the opportunity to teach and coach at the school. It's a wonderful community of students and families. I highly recommend it!

Former student here: I want to warn all of you about enrolling here. I've been here a for couple of…read moreyears of high school and it's been by far the worst experience of my life. I became suicidal, depressed and anxious because of this school and I've also got ptsd from here which digs into my Christian faith. Now when I study a certain book of the Bible or hear a certain hymn, I can no longer enjoy it because it brings me back here. Just last week was I at a Bible Study and it reminded me too much of the Bible Studies here at SBSUM and I started having a panic attack. This school is very controlling for a school of only 300 students and they have ridiculous rules because they don't want to address the real problem. They also lack organization skills and time management as a school who tries to promote that for their students. For the first year in this school, some emails that I should have received I never did and I spent time being lost because I did not know what was going on due to me not receiving those emails. This school is a HUGE FAN of sending out important info very late. This school would send out emails about events coming up two days before the event occurs, not giving me time to plan out my schedule and causing me to miss the event. I have had teachers send out emails about class at 10pm the day before. Even one time I had a teacher asking us to print out a short story and bring it to class 6am the day of. School here can also be very stressful. For example, I've had teachers who would assign WAAAY too much homework, such as 48 math problems due the next day or 50 pages of reading. I've also had teachers who would gaslight me about not doing my homework even though I had a good reason for not doing it that even my parents backed up. I was also very alone here, which originally led to my depression. I originally blamed it on the small school but now seeing the other students in my new school I see now that it's the fellow students of SBSUM who are not welcoming. They are nice but I have been left out and abandoned by them multiple times and I ended up feeling very lonely. When it comes to sports my parents paid $200 just for me to sit on the bench every game even though my parents and I agreed that I played just as well as everyone else and there should be no reason for me to be on the bench. In conclusion, the stress, the students, feeling like you are a puppet and the staff are puppeteers, and constantly being wronged is not worth it. I have examples of the issues that I've mentioned in this review but I do not feel comfortable going into them in detail. If you want your child to have permanent marks on their wrist that they created themselves, this is where you enroll them. If you want your child to grow apart from God, this is where you enroll them. If you want your child to have mental illnesses that both teachers and students caused, this is where you enroll them.

The only true Montessori school in the entire area. Amazing teachers and amazing environment. I…read morelove their food program and i love that I don't have to bring anything for my children. The school provided all of their diapers when hey were toddlers and babies and have provided all of the food since they've been eating. It's an amazing place and my only complaint is that they do not have anything past kindergarten. I wish they had a first grade classroom too.

This place is terrible. You will get a feeling like it's a great school when you just talk to the…read moredirector/owner but the teachers do not understand Montessori philosophy and use time outs and punishments all day long. In the infant room babies are left to cry it out (even two months olds) and in the toddler room kids are forced to become independent before they are ready. Montessori is all about following the child but there they want a 18 months old to be able to dress themselves and leave them to cry out of frustration for up to an hour. I have picked my daughter up in soiled diapers several times and In numerous occasions the diapers leaked through her pants. If you have special dietary restrictions be sure that they will be ignored even if you specifically write them out. My vegan daughter got dairy and eggs for 2 months until I finally found out about it. They will put children in danger. They put my daughter into an adult sized chair during a meltdown and let her fall off TWICE and did not even repay the unused tuition for that month when I finally took her out of the school. Tried to meet with them for a month but it never ended up coming to a meeting since the owner insisted that 2 other employees should be part of the meeting which shows that she doesn't even truly care about the situation. Stay away from this place if you care about your child's wellbeing.

I know Mrs. Norma the owner when i started cosmetology school 16 years ago when she was a teacher…read more I wanted to take more classes and did not think twice in contacting her now that she is the owner of Vision to Reality. I was concerned about the hours since i have a full time job. She is willing to work with you and help you accomplish your goal and flexible on the payment plans.Norma is a very humble person and has human qualities she truly wants you to succeed and is willing to help you every step of the way.

Overall, a very, very good charter school with lots of programs after school activities and a…read morededicated staff to the development of our children. The administration and teachers are very dedicated, putting in lots of additional hours and tutoring to ensure students receive a full education.

My two children attend this wonderful school. This is our ninth year. I can only say good things…read moreabout the staff, parents and leadership. My kids are loved and taken cared of. As a parent I have access to each teacher. I know that my kids are prayed for and loved dearly while being taught all subjects through a Biblical world view and I find this priceless specially after seeing what goes on in public schools now a days. Would recommend to any family that is looking for a Christian School with strong Values.

I attended this school from Kindergarten to my high school graduation. I can honestly say that I am…read moreblessed to have had the opportunity to attend such a wonderful school. I have never seen a school that is more dedicated to training students in academics and the Christian faith. If I had the opportunity to choose a school again, I would absolutely pick CCS again. I made so many wonderful friends and learned so much during my time there. I would recommend CCS to any Christian parent who wants their child to receive a quality education and to learn about Christ in the process. Definitely a five star school.

This place was great 2yrs ago but right now it is not Christian like. My niece started going here…read morewhen she was 20 months and everything was great until they fired the best director they ever had Ms. Chelsea. Once they let go of her everything else went down hill. Mind you anytime they fired someone it is the day of and the people get no reasoning as to why they are being fired. Couple of weeks ago their Director quit, and she fired other employees the same day she quit which then met that they could not have this location open anymore and they let all their staff out to dry to answer all the questions that the children can no longer attend there and had to find other places for their children to go. The current Director Cathy knows nothing but puts a fake smile on her face like she does when in fact, she knows zero about how to run a daycare or how to support her staff. For this to be a Christian daycare they do not treat there employees as such. Communication with parents is terrible and the turnover rate with staff proves they are doing something wrong.

I'm not sure why there isn't a review here yet. Maybe the parents want to keep it a secret because…read morethis faith based preschool is amazing! They teach my 4 year old to work on life skills and being independent, they show love, support and guidance. The teachers are amazing and the before and after school helpers are very loving. It is faith based so my daughter learns about the Bible, sings Christian songs and learned to pray. They have a letter, shape, color, word and bible story of the week that the teacher emails to the parents before hand. There is a main teacher and assistant teacher in my daughters class. Before her preschool class time she usually has 1-2 helpers watching her class, then after class she has 2-3 helpers watching the group(sometimes more). There are a lot of people to watch you child, which is important. You have to provide your own morning snack and lunch, but this is perfect for us because my daughter is a very picky eater. The school provides the afternoon snack. I trust the teachers and helpers at this school. I brought my daughter from another commercialized preschool that wasn't taking care of her and I can say with confidence that this school is taking care of her everyday she is there. I know she is in good hands and I can see her growing and developing each day. I know she will be ready for kindergarten through this preschool.