Our son has attended Spring Hill for the past year, and we love the school and the husband-wife team that run it, Mark and Victoria Oliva. The director Mark comes from a Montessori background, and is fantastic with the kids; everytime I observe him interact with a child I learn something that I can implement with my son. I've never seen him have an interaction with any child that wasn't great. He's gentle and funny and amazing at what he does. In addition, I value the idea of ""showing"" my son that men can do nurturing jobs as well as telling him that girls can do anything that boys can do. In this sense, I like the balance of the male-female teaching team. Victoria comes from a traditional kindergarten background. She is also fantastic with the kids, and my son responds extremely well to her. Both of them are very gentle and comforting with the children, and they are extremely thoughtful about their work. The insights that they have into my son's abilities and personality have really impressed me, and they put a lot of effort into communicating these insights to all the parents at the end of each day. In addition to these things, my son LOVES going to school, and I feel that Spring Hill has given him a great start in this sense. A previous reviewer commented on people skills; I have found exactly the opposite in my yearlong interaction with both Mark and Victoria. However, I've read that Montessori schools in general can seem a bit cold or stand-off-ish at initial visits, because the method is so child-centric. Certainly at our initial visit, both instructors were very engaged with the kids--they were not engaging in a lot of the ""marketing"" that bigger school do for prospective parents or even trying to impress us. Once your child attends, however, this is a very attractive feature! The other side of Spring Hill that I really like is the parent/social side of things. All the parents have been down-to-earth and easy to talk to. There are no fund-raisers, parent associations, etc. Just an easy relationship with 9 other families, and I find this very nice. It has been a perfect fit for our family.
Pros: thoughtful, caring instructors; small, homelike setting
Cons: no summer/afternoon programs
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