Briar Vista Elementary School

We are currently a family here. We're waiting on change, but we will likely leave as soon as we find somewhere else. The same goes for 11 families (of 24) in our son's primary (3-6yo) class. The school is not accredited per AMI as their website states, and they also do not have Spanish speaking teachers in every classroom as the website states. Staff turnover is high, and communication is slacking despite the Procare App they use. Ratios are 1:12, which are much higher than most small schools out there. 1 lead teacher and 2 assistants (paid $14/hr) in each classroom with tiered arrival and departure times. The best part of the school are the hours, 7:30-6:00pm with tuition around $2000 a month. If you all see this, please know I will change my review when the changes are made.

What an amazing school from the teachers, staff, principals to the students that attend. The school itself is absolutely beautiful and we wish more schools could be as pristine. My child wakes up each day excited for a new adventure at John Lewis.

Carlisle Montessori School (CMS) is an excellent school! Both my daughter and son attended from age 2 and graduated out of the primary program at around age 6. To be perfectly honest, we were unfamiliar with Montessori education, and I didn't truly appreciate CMS until we left for a little over a year with our son. We pulled him out when our daughter graduated from CMS so that he could be at the same elementary school as his older sister. We saw firsthand how a preschool operated in a traditional private school and how little our son was benefiting from the education there compared to CMS.Fortunately, we were able to re-enroll him at CMS and within months of returning not only did he learn a tremendous amount, but his confidence, executive functioning and independence grew! These developments are what make CMS special because although our children have different strengths and personalities, they both thrived there. I just never realized how much of it was the school versus the child until this experience. Through my experience, I learned that at typical Montessori schools, the teachers believe the child’s potential is the greatest during the first 6 years of life while traditional schools believe it's the high school/college years. Therefore, early education is not as emphasized in traditional preschools. Whereas AMI certified teachers are trained to optimize a child's development and growth when the child's brain develops rapidly in the first six years of life (Montessori calls this period the absorbent mind). Montessori education also does a fantastic job identifying a child's strengths, inner passion and teaching leadership skills through the mixed-age environment.When children graduate from CMS' 3 year primary program, they take this confidence, love for learning, leadership skills, social emotional skills and an incredibly solid academic foundation (reading/writing in cursive/print, math facts (+, - , /, *), fractions, science, geography, astronomy, world culture, music etc.) with them for the rest of their lives. CMS holds a very special place in my heart because of how well they treated our children when they were so young and innocent. My children absolutely loved going to school and the teachers were so kind and loving. This school was like a second home and we made great friends during our time there. An education like CMS will take your child far in life. I highly recommend this school!