Any preschool recommendations in the Cary/Morrisville areas? (Raleigh, Durham: day cares, wages)

[HamsterHuey]

I'm in a bit of a weird situation in that I have a job offer in Durham and will be starting soon, but I will be working remotely for a few months before I can move my whole family from upstate NY to NC. I have 2 year old twins who currently go to a Montessori preschool and are doing very well there. My wife and I like their current Montessori school, but are not necessarily married to the idea of having our kids next preschool be Montessori based. The only thing we are dead set on is that we don't want to enroll them in one of those typical "shiny" corporate day cares that look great on the surface, but pay their teachers peanuts and have very high turn over with regards to their staff and provide little structure and consistency to the kids (we've had a not so great experience with such a daycare in the past).

Looking online, it's very hard to tell the good preschools apart from these types of daycares. I'd really like to have some suggestions/recommendations on good preschools in the Cary/Morrisville areas with experienced teachers, engaging activities/curriculum and low turnover. We do plan on visiting the area in the next month or so, but it's still hard to decide on such things with a simple visit. My wife will be working in Rayleigh, so we settled on Cary/Morrisville for now so the commute isn't too bad for either of us. I'd really appreciate any inputs from folks living in the area. Hearing real life recommendations/experiences would be so much more helpful to us!

[Sal_M]

Greenwood Forest Children's center, they are the BEST! I don't usually make that declaration but I can't say enough good things about them. I have had experiences with other pre-schools in the area and I only wish we started there sooner.

[lamishra]

are you looking for all day care or just morning preschool?

[lamishra]

One place I can tell you to avoid, which is just as you described, is The Goddard School on NW Maynard in Cary. You hit the nail on the head!
However, I have heard excellent things from a lot of different people about Primrose in Morrisville.
Most of what you will find here are full day, private day cares or part time preschools, most are located in churches but not all are religiously affiliated.

[meanieme]

I'm curious what Montessori provides that you like that the "shiny" corporate ones don't?

[sittingonamtntop]

Originally Posted by meanieme

I'm curious what Montessori provides that you like that the "shiny" corporate ones don't?

Montessori is an unique educational philosophy. They also use different learning materials.


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montessori_education





OP, we send our two children to Montessori preschool. There are some great options in the Triangle. I recommend looking into :

Heartwood
Triangle Montessori Academy
Follow the Child

Ive also been impressed with The Raleigh School's preschool. It is not Montessori but has a somewhat similar vibe and philosophy.

[shellsd]

My kids went to Kids r Kids of Morrisville and I loved it. Many of my older son's teachers are still there, and he is 11 now. The administrators are the same. Both boys were ahead of the ball game when they started kindergarten. Not only did they learn a lot, they were loved a lot.

[lamishra]

I was going to suggest Heartwood but I don't think they do all day for kids that age? Maybe I'm wrong...

Edited: never mind, looks like they do but it's PRICEY.

[HamsterHuey]

Firstly, Thanks everyone so much for the inputs, I really appreciate it! I should have mentioned in the first post - We do require full-day preschool as both my wife and I work full-time.

Originally Posted by Sal_M

Greenwood Forest Children's center, they are the BEST! I don't usually make that declaration but I can't say enough good things about them. I have had experiences with other pre-schools in the area and I only wish we started there sooner.

Sal, Greenwood looks great but unfortunately it looks like they only do part-day preschool for 2 year old kids. Both my wife and I work full-time, so unfortunately it looks like we will have to rule this place out for this year.

Originally Posted by meanieme

I'm curious what Montessori provides that you like that the "shiny" corporate ones don't?

I'm by no means someone who has drunk the Montessori kool-aid or that thinks that it is the best thing since sliced bread and that no other approach to schooling can match it. But that being said, there are some very nice things about Montessori that many corporate daycares do not provide. For example:

1) A decent Montessori school typically has teachers with much more training and experience as the head teacher. In a lot of the not so great corporate daycares, teacher turnover is very high (and not surprisingly since where I am, a lot of these daycares pay minimum wages to the teachers).

2) Perhaps the most important thing I value is for kids to have some structure and consistency in preschool. Because Montessori has a philosophy aspect to it, you can be assured that all the teachers in the school try to align with the same form of interacting with kids, and nurturing them. It also promotes self-reliance and independence which I have definitely seen with my kids. While there is no reason you couldn't do the same in non-Montessori settings, you still need all the teachers in the day care to share a common approach to teaching and interacting with the kids, and that is often missing in a lot of the corporate daycares that pay minimum wage to teachers.

I could point out a few more things about them. None of this is unique to Montessori or the Montessori philosophy. It's just harder to find a non-Montessori day care that still tries to provide a similar approach and consistency to kids because each day-care may have a different philosphy and approach, or no common, cohesive approach across teachers. I'd be more than happy to go with a good non-Montessori school, as long as the teachers were experienced, and provided a stable, structured and consistent environment that also encouraged kids to be independent and learn and play.

Originally Posted by sittingonamtntop

OP, we send our two children to Montessori preschool. There are some great options in the Triangle. I recommend looking into :

Heartwood
Triangle Montessori Academy
Follow the Child

Ive also been impressed with The Raleigh School's preschool. It is not Montessori but has a somewhat similar vibe and philosophy.

Thanks very much. Some of those were on our list, we'll definitely add them. It looks like a lot of the local Montessori schools don't accept kids till age 3 from what we've found, but we're still early in our search.

Originally Posted by shellsd

My kids went to Kids r Kids of Morrisville and I loved it. Many of my older son's teachers are still there, and he is 11 now. The administrators are the same. Both boys were ahead of the ball game when they started kindergarten. Not only did they learn a lot, they were loved a lot.

Thanks a lot! Added it to our list. We'll probably visit the area in a few weeks and try to meet with teachers in the schools on our list.

Originally Posted by lamishra

I was going to suggest Heartwood but I don't think they do all day for kids that age? Maybe I'm wrong...

Edited: never mind, looks like they do but it's PRICEY.

Thanks a lot for your inputs! :-)

Some of the other schools we had on our list were:
- Little Pros Academy (Morrisville)
- Primrose school
- Global Montessori (They take 2 year old kids)
- La Petite
- Kiddie Academy
- Preston Children's academy
- Chesterbrook Academy (Cary)
- Triangle Academy

Would love to hear any inputs, good or bad for any of these. Thanks again everyone!

[hertfordshire]

I don't have kids, but all my colleagues have sent their kids to Chesterbrook, and all have been excessively pleased.