Cedars Montessori School

PLEASE take heed before sending your children here. As a Waldorf alumni, we wanted Waldorf for our kids even though my education wasn’t perfect. We were there 8 yrs and saw a lot of really disturbing things, mostly stemming from the admin. While there, the head of school changed 4 times, each one worse than the next. With one of the new heads of school, we got an email describing him. I literally said to my spouse, “I don’t know anything about running a school but I’m willing to bet he only lasts 2 years.” It wasn’t rocket science, they put it in the email - he’d worked at Waldorf schools in three different states all around the country. Unfortunately I was right, he didn’t even last one year. No idea HOW they’re hiring who they are but it terrible. The teachers were pretty toxic too, not towards our kids so much thankfully but I saw terrible favoritism, labeling, and bullying from teachers toward students. There was a HUGE turn over in teachers, which says a lot. I saw SO MANY kids unable to read simple words in 3rd grade. I could go on and on about the things parents I met there shared with me. I heard of so many children there taking huge blows to their self esteem, falling WAY behind in all subjects. I heard of random racism, letting some kids arrive late daily while another family of a different nationality was asked to leave for being late way less often. One child we knew of sustained an injury in the morning, wasn’t attended to, then was let by the school to walk home after school. When the mom took him to the ER, he needed stitches. When the child went back to school, the PE teacher said to the child, “I TOLD you you’d need stitches.” She should’ve told an adult. Never did. Shameful.It is not the warm community you’d expect. Families are asked to clean the classrooms before the first day of school while other Waldorf schools host potlucks on campus to help families get to know each other. The parents are VERY cliquish. The school never offered any parent workshops. I did have friends I met there who had ok experiences with the school and academically but they were less than 50%. Just look at the class sizes… there’s a waitlist in kinder and the early grades, then very small classes in the upper grades and high school. People go there, hoping like we did, and wisely LEAVE.Austin Waldorf is a very sick place and gives Waldorf a bad name. PLEASE take heed before sending your children here.