North Richland Hills Montessori

Love this school and their staff. From what I understand there is high turn over rate of teachers for pre-school/Montessori schools, that’s definitely not the case here.nThere are so many great things about this school that sets it higher than others. The kids are excited to work on their assignments, I see nothing but smiles on many of the kids when they are working at their tables. I do see the occasional kid crying or having a bad day. The teacher comforts or has a talking with the student and then proceeds to teach the rest of the class with the assistance of another adult teacher. Two adult teachers can always be found in every classroom.nThey offer bonus courses in soccer, music and martial arts which is what brought me to this school. After two years I am very impressed with everything I have seen or heard. I highly recommend this school to anyone looking for a caring, nurturing, learning environment for children.

We started taking our son here in January of 2019 and it’s been great so far. We love Dana as well as the rest of the teaching staff. Ms. Virginia is absolutely wonderful and she’s been a phenomenal help in getting our son through separation anxiety. Our son has learned so much in so little time. I love the holiday celebrations that the school organizes as well as all the other activities for the kids to exceed in their learning. We have had a few issues that we expressed to Dana and she was beyond understanding. This Montessori is so clean and organized, the rooms are always spotless, it’s also very quiet and that’s mainly because all kids are busy. The teachers are amazing. This is the first place we have taken our son to and as any other parent, we had our worries. But I can reassure you that what you spend here is well worth it for your kids.

So there's a lot of good in this place, but the bad far outweighed the good for my 2 year old.nnTwo times in a row he takes a super hard hit to his head with only a few weeks apart. Once hitting a sink outside and another hitting the table. Both times he comes back with a giant bruised whelp. The second time was less than an hour after I dropped him off. He's never bumped his head like that ever before at home or when we take him out.nnI did love his teacher! She was as good a caretaker as you can get, but there's way too many kids in the rooms. The Montessori had me sold when they mentioned that they had 2 teachers per 14 students but that's not really the case. It looks like they have 1 experienced teacher and 1 teenager helper, and the teenager helper is only there sometimes. This is most notable after nap time when the teacher is changing diapers, no assistant is there, and there's half the kids running around, and half asleep scattered around the floor unattended, then the afternoon care kids come in a little later and overflow the room. The experienced teacher will change diapers and attend to parents and there's a lot of windows for inattention if the assistant is away. When there is new kids they need a whole lot of attention because it's really hard for them those first days. If your kid can play with the same toy for hours that might be what he does all day because there's not a lot of time for personal attention with so many kids, and if your child does not seek it out he will not get much.nnSometimes I have meetings early morning, so I signed up to morning care. I wanted it optional in case I have to bring him. I had to bring in my son early and the caretaker was on her phone while the room full of kids were all glued to their individual toys, when she saw me she pushed it away slowly with tired eyes. My son was crying because it was still one of his first visits and I asked for her help. She said he was crying because he didn't know her yet. She took him and put him with some legos, and I went to put up his water bottle in his main room. Not 2 minutes later my kid was screaming by the window next to the door and all the kids were staring at him and she was back on her phone not giving a care! I had to take him back and cancel morning care.nnI took him in about 20 minutes before morning care ends so I could make my work meeting, most kids had already been there for a good while. I think the morning care taker just gets all of them settled with some toy until the clock depletes; if you bring in a new crying kid near of their shift, when most the other kids are glued to some toy, it's burdensome for them to have to settle them down. She immediately gave a label as to why he was crying in a way that said there's nothing she can do about that instead of actually trying to be comforting. The morning care and after care seem like the worst type of baby sitter you can get; just someone messing with their phone while your kids mess with stuff, except the bad baby sitter will still probably bother responding when your child is crying.nnMy son was really attached to his security blanket. After Montessori he hates _all_ blankets. They try really hard to make them go to sleep, probably by swaddling them (strapping them down) in the blanket and trying to get the limbs to stop flailing long enough for the eyes to roll back. To some degree this can work. But I think they try far too long to force them to go to sleep so they can take their break time. He absolutely hates that blanket now, and he absolutely hates any blanket you put on him even if it's cold. If your kid requires supervision and is phasing out of naps, or takes his naps at varying times in the day, he will have a very bad time.nnThere was a lot of things that were really good .The activity rotation and gym time was good. The experienced care taker we had for his main home room was pretty good. The building is really elegant and looks bigger and nicer than most Montessori. But there were too many events that were offensively bad.

Experienced and patient with the children. Amazing summer program. Front office is very easy to work. The quality of the curriculum is at a very high level and instantly saw an improvement with my daughter's excitement for school as opposed to the previous school that she went to that were a also paid a premium for. The only caveat is that they don't take credit card as a payment.

Love Dana the Director and how involved she is in every child and aspect and event always able to provide an answer to any questions I may have and my son has thrived in this loving, creative, inviting environment. You never hear “I’m not sure, or I don’t know, or I’ll have to get back to you on that!” when asking any question about literally anything, they always have an up to date answer and information and more. Couldn’t be happier we chose NRH after looking at and touring MANY others. You won’t regret making this decision for your little one!