Is the good enough preschool good enough?

May 11, 2015 9:15 AM

Statstoddler will soon be turning three, and we are trying to decide between keeping at his current daycare center or switching him to a Montessori-based preschool in August.

He’s been at the current daycare since he was an infant and all of the lead teachers are caring and generally lovely. He has learned all of his standard two-year old things (e.g., counting to twenty, capital letters, and general socialization.) They are part of a positive behavioral intervention and supports pilot program, which seems to work pretty well in keeping the toddler peace. He seems to like most of the kids in his class.

However, there are a few downsides. Some of the assistant teachers aren’t as involved in playing with the kids as I would like. Also, the space isn’t great. It’s a bit cramped so sometimes at the end of the day he sometimes seems overwhelmed by all of the other kids. The layout is such that preschoolers don’t have easy access to sinks or a restroom. Also, the curriculum seems to be more flashcard-oriented mixed along with play.

The Montessori school, on the other hand, has beautiful facilities with easy access to materials, sinks, washrooms, and quiet corners when the child needs some space. They also have more outdoor time than our current place. All of the lead and assistant teachers have college degrees and seem to be more involved with the kids. While we can afford it, the Montessori school is substantially more expensive per month (~$325 more a month); the hours and days are more limited so we’d need to rearrange work schedules to coordinate pickup/dropoff and take additional vacation days during school breaks; and it’s a little farther from home so we would no longer be able to walk to school.

It seems that academically and possibly socially, the Montessori may be better but convenience- and cost-wise the current school is the winner.

Any advice on which one to choose? Or how we make the choice? I keep making a decision and then second-guessing it.

posted by statsgirl to Education (13 answers total)

I am not sure how to advise you to make the choice for yourself, but we were in a similar situation with our three children. Ultimately, we chose the Montessori and we loved it and have no regrets. In fact, some 15 years later, we recommend it to people who ask.

The issues we faced were both more money and much longer drive. The preschool they had gone to was a mile away and the Montessori about 10 in suburban driving so about 20 minutes away. I was fearful that we were picking the Montessori because of the better facilities and higher cost. I thought maybe we were just throwing money at it in the vane of how can you afford not to do best for the little Wests. But, when we took out all the outside factors such as commute, cost (not so big of a difference) and other external factors and just focused on the program itself and the teachers themselves, we did not hesitate to go with the Montessori.

I am sure there are multiple opinions on the program, but we found Montessori to be great for our three very different from each other kids. Now that they are all 18 or older, thinking back, I credit Montessori with some of their development outside of the class as well as being very prepared for public school when they were in Kindergarten.

I would break the decision into two parts. One, and to me the most important, the actual programs, teachers and facilities. Two, the external factors such as commute, costs, other kids or other parents, etc.
posted by AugustWest at 9:32 AM on May 11, 2015

It really depends whether the extra money per month is affordable to you. Will you get any of that money back on your taxes? If you make friends with the other Montessori parents, you may be able to trade off coverage during the days the facility is closed.
posted by puddledork at 9:47 AM on May 11, 2015

Not directly answering your question, but a few years ago I also asked about Montessori preschools and got some good stuff to think about.

My son is just about to finish up seventh grade in Montessori and it was definitely the right choice for him.
posted by bondcliff at 9:53 AM on May 11, 2015 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Let me offer the opposing view. Montessori is surely better for your child while he is there, but you should weigh the external factors equally or even more heavily.

When our daughter (she is now 10) was in daycare/preschool, we went to a place that we loved 30 minutes away from our place. I took her in the mornings on public transportation and my wife picked her up in our car in the evenings. We really liked what she was getting while there, but the overall process was exhausting for everyone. It added a bunch of commuting time that we could have otherwise spent doing quality things with her, it often forced us to choose cruddier dinner options so that we could get her fed quickly when we got home, it cost us money that I wish we had put into her college savings plan, and it created job stress to have to work around a restricted time schedule of opening/closing. When we moved to the suburbs, we picked a local place that was "good enough" and it served us perfectly well.

The mere fact that you are considering these things so carefully suggests that you are the type of parents that will offer your son an enriching experience in many ways while he is not at daycare/preschool. If you can make life easier for all of you, save money, and walk each day, all while meeting the basic needs of keeping your son safe and well cared for while at school, you should feel no guilt at all choosing that. Use the extra time for quality activities, and the extra money for his future.
posted by AgentRocket at 9:54 AM on May 11, 2015 [20 favorites]

If it ain't broke...

Personally, I would be loathe to take him away from the teachers, friends, and school that he's been going to daily since infancy. That kind of consistency and bond is important, too. But YMMV. Both places sound nice, so I don't think that you can really go wrong.
posted by rue72 at 10:09 AM on May 11, 2015 [1 favorite]

What's your kindergarten situation? Is it public, test-in, private? If it's a competitive school system, it may be worth the cost now if it saves you later on. Do you know any of the parents of kids that just entered kindergarten from daycare this past year? If there's a way to get information on how prepared they felt their children were that would help me make my decision.

I'm looking at preschool and my considerations include: how much time I will have to spend with my kid after work with pick-up/drop-off schedules, curriculum, what outside activities I can afford after tuition, outside playground facilities, coordination with sibling care and health (e.g., is poor hand washing causing your kid to get sick more often, how convenient it is to get to doctor/dentist etc appointments).
posted by typecloud at 10:26 AM on May 11, 2015

What AgentRocket said. It might be a bit nicer for him to go to the Montessori, but it will not make the difference if he wants to go to Harvard someday, and the financial/ logistical costs to your family can probably be better spent elsewhere. Having parents who aren't stressed out is important too, and as someone who values both the community and outdoor-world interactions that walking allows, being within walking distance would be a huge factor for me.
posted by metasarah at 10:57 AM on May 11, 2015

A lot of this depends on how hard it would be to do the needed rearranging. If you're choosing between this or saving for college, save for college. If it's an hour drive vs a 5 minute walk, take the 5 minute walk. But, if you really can afford it, and it's (let's say) a 10 minute drive vs a 5 minute walk, it's worth considering in further detail. WRT school holidays, does the daycare center offer drop-ins in that situation? Some of the ones around here do.

The things you mention that stand out to me are the outdoor time, and your son sometimes seeming overwhelmed in his current situation. Also, preschoolers need toilets! Those are things that may be worth addressing. (My son is a big fan of the peace corner at his school.)

There's nothing magic about Montessori, per se (most about anyplace can declare itself a Montessori school), but the nice ones are lovely and airy and calm and pleasant places to be. The well-run Montessori schools also place a lot of emphasis on character development in very practical ways. The kids are given quite a bit of responsibility, and are integrated into running the classroom. Older kids mentor younger kids; anyone who notices a supply has run out (strings in the necklace work, paper towels in the bathroom, etc) replenishes it. At my son's school, the kindergarteners set the tables and put out (glass) plates for each child, and all the kids clean up after lunch. All the kids at the school are polite and well-mannered, and I think that's a reflection of how the teachers run the classroom. In addition to that, I like a lot of the Montessori works, and I like that the kids can build up to doing some pretty complicated and interesting stuff.

That said, it's kind of unpredictable how these things are going to go. I send my son to the Montessori school near work and it's a great school. He's matured a lot, and learned a lot, and of the preschool options we looked at, it's probably the best fit for him. But it was a big, and difficult, transition from daycare. I chose a school near work so I could pick him up and drop him off, but it's turned out that he really is not able to cope with a full day at preschool (whereas the full day at daycare was ok - it helped that his sitter usually fed him dinner). So I have ended up hiring someone to pick him up from school and take him home earlier. That's been a good move for our family anyway (we've been dealing with complicated health problems in our younger, plus my husband has a very family-unfriendly job) but it means our childcare expenses are through the roof and it's not something I anticipated when I put him in the school. The silver lining, I suppose, is that the rocky transition is what made us aware of our son's sensory processing issues, and I think the interventions we're pursuing now will help him in spades when he starts elementary school.

In summary, whether you should consider the better school depends on how much going there would disrupt your lives; and no matter which school you go with, weird things may crop up out of left field.
posted by telepanda at 11:10 AM on May 11, 2015 [4 favorites]

Here's how I would make the decision.

If I could afford it without being financially irresponsible, and my job was flexible enough to accommodate it, and it would not stress me out a lot, I would take advantage of my situation to offer my child the preschool that comes closest to just letting him play outside. He'll start school soon enough, and then will be stuck inside most of the time for many years.

Just because it won't help him get into Harvard, doesn't mean it's not worth doing. That said, there are a lot of studies that show that children learn best through outdoor play.

At that age, I don't think you need expensive quality activities in addition to preschool. So I would not take that into consideration.
posted by pizzazz at 1:03 PM on May 11, 2015

There are some minor things about our preschool that don't sit well with us, but two things have kept us there rather than switching to a Montessori. The first is the continuity of being with his friends and in a familiar environment. The second is that we took a hard look at his personality and decided that he really needs the structure of the environment that he's in now, rather than a more free-form environment at the Montessori. When we thought of both of those factors together we decided not to interrupt his routine (he'll be going off to a kindegarten where none of his friends will be going, and we didn't want him to have too many of those kinds of transitions in his academic life). It might depend on your kids' personality.
posted by vignettist at 1:23 PM on May 11, 2015

Does it have to be decided now? We waited until the year before kindergarten to switch to a different program. It seems like you probably have at least another 2 years before kindergarten so I'd be inclined to do another year at the daycare and then reassess. By then, your child may be done with whatever curriculum they have and ready to move on to a new adventure and then you'd only have the one year of extra cost and complication.
posted by otherwordlyglow at 2:57 PM on May 11, 2015

Count the hours carefully. You have 168 hours in a week and if you write out a schedule for both schools that takes into account traffic, packing bags and feeding kids, bathroom breaks etc - I would actually do one where everything goes smoothly and one where traffic is bad, a kid is sick, etc - and then see if the Montessori schedule still gives your family enough time every day to be with your kid and have some flexibility. It's not just about the cost, but about running yourselves ragged and having a kid that's exhausted and doesn't get family play time either - an improvement in school won't make up for losing that.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 6:32 PM on May 11, 2015

We've made a similar decision recently, although our daughter would be around 18 months when we switched. We thought about how that extra $2000 a year could be used toward a really nice vacation, that might allow the little one to experience great big things that aren't available where we are. That seemed like a better use of the money to us, right now.
posted by bizzyb at 8:03 AM on May 12, 2015