Boyds day care

Seriously thinking about Boyds montessori day care. Please provide feed back good or bad. I did see some negative feed back about Boyds but wondering if things got fixed over there. And also please provide recommendations to any other good day care schools around. Thank you.

 

Do you mean the Boyd School (www.theyboydschool.com)? Our child went there for 1 year (pre - K) last year. If that is hte one, let me know and I can provide some feedback..

 

am talking about the Boyd's montessori that is on wax pool road.

 

I recommend Montessori Academy at Belmont Greene over the Boyd School. If you want further information I can help out.

 

Yes. that is the same one I am talking about.

We were not impressed with it for the 1 year that out daughter went there. Our main sticking points:
- The school was without a Director (principal) for almost the whole year. Hence noone who we could approach for day-to-day issues. Everytime we went to the office, it was a different person there.
- We were promised a Music and Art Teacher but neither materialized in the whole year. Our repeated enqueries led to "we are looking for suitable/qualified candidates" answers. Our gripe: do not promise something that you cannot deliver.
- Their whole attitude appeared to be about money i.e. any question to the office other an handing in the monthly fee was answered in a very impersonal way.

Our daughter had attended the Herndon Boyd the previous year and we were very impressed. Now were realize that was because the Herndon branch had a gr8 director (who knew alomost every student and parent by name and would often be seen sitting in the hallway entertaining a dozen kids around pickup time..no such "personal" touch at Broadlands) and our child had a gr8 teacher (of course, I know the opinion about the teacher varies from person-to-person). That was the reason we chose to go to Broadlands Boyd when we moved to Ashburn. I will say, we had to greatly lower lower expectations as the year on Broadlands progressed :-(

Our daughter is now in Public school and we feel it is as good as the care/learning she got in Boyd sans the hefty fee!!

 

We sent our daughter to the Boyd School at Broadlands for 3 years and only had one good year there (03-04). My advice...check into the turnover rate there --one year my daughter had four head teachers. In my opinion, Montessori is only as good as the teacher you get. Bad or inexperienced teacher = poorly run classroom = your child will not be learning all the wonderful things they like to show you at the Montessori education night/videos.

This year we are sending our son to Montessori Academy at Belmont Greene and are very pleased.

 

ANY school, public or private, is only as good as your child's particular teacher.

 

I agree that your experience at any school is only as good as your child's teacher, but it is the responsibility of the school to attract and retain quality teachers. My son attended Boyd school for 2 years; the first year his class had 3 lead teachers. The second year was no director, no art teacher and no music teacher. For what you pay at Boyd, the quality is lacking.

 

This is strictly a rumor I believe at this point, but I've heard that the existing Broadlands director will be leaving after this year.

 

What is the cost at Boyd?

 

We paid $1100/month for the pre-K extended program (9:00 am to 3:00 pm). This was last year...I am guessing the fee has only gone up since then.

 

There are several options to the school day. We used before care and extended school day (7:30 am to 3:00 pm) which cost $12,000 for the school year. To add the after care (3:00 pm - 6:00 pm) put the total cost over $15,000.

 

Gee, I thought they just hired a new director last year.

 

holy crap! in so many ways.

 

indeed. it is ridiculous how much child care costs!

 

Plus having to commute so far so that you have to drop your child off at 7:30am and not see them til 6:00pm. The busyness here leaves families with NO time together (what, 2 hours while eating and getting ready for bed?) throughout the week.

 

They did.

 

and they will do it again soon...

 

My daughter went to Boyd last year for Pre-K. I have to agree that for the money we paid, there should have been more. The art, music and spanish teachers did not show up until way past the middle of the school year, plus they were without a director for most of the year. Despite that, my daughter really loved her teacher and her fellow classmates/friends. She benefited from being in the montessori environment and atmosphere. So I feel that she at least gained something academically and socially, and she has happy memories of the place. Things that bothered me as the parent had absolutely no effect on her opinion of the school. She was also enrolled in the after care program and was always reluctant to leave at the end of the day. Despite some of the managerial/administrative issues, we would have re-enrolled her for Kindergarten if only it wasn't so darn expensive!