Starting daycare...

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Wow... that much just for two days?

I think we paid that much for 5 days... what's going on here? Are we in a preschool bubble?

I saw the Great Foundations Montessori while driving buy on Irvine Blvd at the Northwood Town Center... have you checked that out?
 
Just visited Mariner's preschool today...  so that's what they consider a Mega church?  impressive...  prices are decent.. teachers seem friendly/caring...  bit of a drive for us.. if we ever go full time then the drive would be an issue but at two days/week not so bad.  Got on the ASAP wait list...  no lunch provided though, only two snacks...  that means something else to worry about in the morning...

While we were there, a pregnant lady was also touring the school.. guess she's doing her homework early, not like us..
 
irvinehomeowner said:
Wow... that much just for two days?

I think we paid that much for 5 days... what's going on here? Are we in a preschool bubble?
Click to expand...

I think what we are witnessing is preschool as a status symbol.  You've got the trophy wife, the Mercedes/BMW, the granite countertops, and steel appliances.  All that's left is to overpay for your child's opportunity to learn about tying their shoes and stacking blocks.  Adding the word "Montessori" to the name of a preschool commands an extra $5,000 per year, much like adding the name Louis Vuitton to a handbag makes it worth $3,500.
 
Liar Loan said:
Adding the word "Montessori" to the name of a preschool commands an extra $5,000 per year, much like adding the name Louis Vuitton to a handbag makes it worth $3,500.
Click to expand...
It depends on the school. Some programs operate under the assumption they are correctly following Montessori methods when in fact they are really just integrating some aspects into standard curriculum.

Not sure how much you know about education systems, but Montessori is actually a highly-respected program and teachers have to go through different course work to be certified to teach in such a system.

I realize skepticism is the soup-du-jour when it comes to education practices but my wife actually took classes about the Montessori system to educate us on the differences.
 
And I forgot to add... at least in the pre-schools we looked at in Irvine, they were all similar in pricing regardless if they had Montessori in the name, were faith-based or part of a chain.
 
irvinehomeowner said:
And I forgot to add... at least in the pre-schools we looked at in Irvine, they were all similar in pricing regardless if they had Montessori in the name, were faith-based or part of a chain.
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I found the pricing to vary greatly...  most faith-based schools are cheaper, not accredited (Good shephard the exception), and charge tuition on a monthly basis (more on this later).  Any school that is accredited tend to be more expensive or impossible to get into, unless you just took a positive pregnancy test and showed them the stick to get on the wait list.. The chains (tutor time, kindercare) are more expensive and they charge weekly.. so in a year you pay an extra month of tuition compared to the monthly tuition.  The school we're leaving is charging $545 a month.. the new school we're switching to is $178 a week... which equals $771/month. 

Our friends are shocked by how much we pay in Irvine... one of our friends had their kid in a full day, 5 days a week, with 3 meals, plus teach Chinese and Spanish for $500 a month.. this is in LA/San Gabriel area...


 
irvinehomeowner said:
It depends on the school. Some programs operate under the assumption they are correctly following Montessori methods when in fact they are really just integrating some aspects into standard curriculum.

Not sure how much you know about education systems, but Montessori is actually a highly-respected program and teachers have to go through different course work to be certified to teach in such a system.

I realize skepticism is the soup-du-jour when it comes to education practices but my wife actually took classes about the Montessori system to educate us on the differences.
Click to expand...

I recently placed my two kids in preschool so I'm well-studied on the Montessori system and the other types of preschools.  Maybe you are correct that there is premium just to go to preschool in Irvine.  I wouldn't know.  However, the Montessori near my home charged exactly twice as much as the Christian preschool that we ended up going with.  As in $5,000 more per child, per year.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm not knocking the Montessori method, just the marketing that is behind it.  They have successfully convinced upper middle class parents that their kid could become the next founder of Google if only they attend a Montessori preschool.  I'm not buying it and I'm definitely not paying for it.

The scientific evidence that Montessori kids turn out better, at least what is posted online, is scant.  The few studies I've read about didn't seem to have good control groups.  The kids they compared against may not have attended preschool, or in the case of elementary age kids, they may have compared to public schools instead of other private schools.  Obviously, an expensive private school is going to outperform the average public school so that's not a fair comparison.

Since your wife is somewhat of an expert, if you have any studies that you can post, or send me privately, I would be very interested to read them.
 
Like I said previously... I found the cost to be the same among the schools we looked at... at most maybe a $200 a month delta but that's only $2400, not $5000... and the Christian Montessori (no longer open) was actually on the lower end of the price scale.

Also... no one seemed to be telling us that the Montessori system was better... they just explained what their system was... and how it was different (not necessarily superior). As for my wife being an expert... you need more years for that. She just wanted to take the basic classes to understand the philosophy and at the time she was considering going into teaching. I don't even know if there is scientific studies proving one system is better than the other... we just found that the Montessori pedagogy was in line with how we perceived young child education to be. We also liked Reggio Emilia but we didn't see many schools based on that system (coincidentally, the IUSD after-school CDC, according to their materials, is influenced by the Reggio Emilia).

I think the draw for us was there was a system they were using with guidelines by two national associations and accreditation attached. When we looked at something like a Kindercare or Childtime, we weren't really given concrete answers on what type of system they were using and maybe because they were only going up to K... there wasn't a need for it. We had a preference for faith-based pre-schools but those were even more vague about their teaching system (we saw at least 3 different ones).

Since we knew our kids were planning to stay there after K, it was important for us that they had a system in place. In the end, it may just be a wash, but we did find that the methods used were "better" to what we are experiencing now in public school. But like you said, that may to do more with private vs. public than the education system (and the much smaller class sizes).

Anyways, it seems your initial post was based on your own experience which differed greatly from ours and I'm glad you explained it.
 
Toured another preschool today, called Creators Corner in Tustin Ranch, ran by Salvation Army, nice facility (they have a full indoors bball court!).  Prices are decent as well for $540 for two days a week, no lunch provide, just two snacks.  Director is friendly but strict in a nice sort of way.  Seems like its predominantly Korean, (duh, my Korean dentist recommended this place).  Very nicely done playground.  The only catch?  Needs to be potty trained, my daughter is not there yet so we'll have to pass on this one.  Plus a little out of the way, it's way up Jamboree pass the fire authority, kinda far for my wife to pick up after work.
 
So my daughter seems to be adjusting well to her new school.. it has been almost two weeks and no outburst of tears at pick up (where at the old school she always cried when she was picked up and wants to just go home).  So far so good.. teachers do seem more educated and above all, they seem to care..  and that's all I ask...

As for her old school, glad we're no longer associated with them.. so many red flags just after two months..  unfriendly director...  my daughter always looking torn up at pick up (crazy hair, sand in shoe, dried snot on face).  and then the incident when she got hurt and the teacher not noticing..  they even took out another day's worth of tuition from our deposit... I gave 30 days notice on 11/1 thinking her last day will be on the 30th (makes sense to me).  the director says we have to pay up to 12/1...  we don't understand and at this point don't really care anymore...  just glad to move on...  btw IUCC is one of the cheapest in Irvine but you do get what you paid for in this case...i should probably post this on yelp...
 
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