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marianne
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| Posted: Aug 11 2007 at 7:55am | IP Logged
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We are moving in a year and I knew that there was a Montessori Preschool right in our future neighborhood. I've always homeschooled and don't really have plans to change that, but all of my kids get a year of preschool at the church down the street, just for fun. So thinking about how Peter will be 3.5 when we move, I e-mailed this Montessori school and asked for an info packet, which came a couple of days ago. The tuition is, and I can hardly choke this out on my keyboard, $9000 a year for half-day preschool. Their Kindergarten Montessori program is $12,500 for full day K. 
Who spends that kind of cash on PRESCHOOL, Montessori or not?! I am absolutely FLABBERGASTED. I have heard that this is a nice private school, so I'm thinking that there are Montessori schools that are much less expensive, please tell me I'm right about that. If we don't find one for us, it's no big deal, I'm just curious now.
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earthmaven
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It's about the same where we are. In fact, ours also levies an additional "building fund" of $2,000 and then looks for donations over and above that. Granted, it's a beautiful building and the program looks wonderful, but I could never justify that kind of price tag, especially with more than one child!
We joke that for that price, our children can learn Italian...in Italy! We could be taking trips all over the world and still have cash left over (assuming we had it to start with).
Tracy
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SuzanneG
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| Posted: Aug 11 2007 at 9:46am | IP Logged
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earthmaven wrote:
We joke that for that price, our children can learn Italian...in Italy! We could be taking trips all over the world and still have cash left over |
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That's crazy....that kind of $$$ for preschool. I don't know about the Mont pre-schools around here (but now you have me curious and I want to call), but there is a Waldorf school (1-6) down the street from us and tuition is $14k / year!!!!
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Suzanne in ID
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SeaStar
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Our newspaper just had a front page article that started along the lines of "Montessori education is generally reserved for the very rich"... which I thought was very sad- not to mention would have Maria Montessori rolling in her grave. The article was about a Montessori charter program being started in a failing school district. The parents and the teachers raised $18,000 themselves to pay for equipment and teacher training.
It's crazy how much preschool can cost.
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Melinda, mom to ds ('02) and dd ('04)
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Eleanor
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Private schools tend to be very pricey at all levels, especially in areas with a high cost of living. In the SF bay area, Montessori tuition is usually around $10-12K, which places it somewhere in the middle of the pack. The Catholic schools are usually around $7-8K, although I know of a particularly highly regarded one, in a very wealthy neighborhood, that's $14K. Waldorf kindergarten is $15K. And the highest kindergarten tuition I've seen so far in our area was a whopping $21K, for a very elite prep school.
The only real "bargains" are to be found in the play-based, part-time, parent-participation preschools (How's that for alliteration?  ), and perhaps some of the programs run by Protestant churches.
By contrast, I've seen Montessori schools in other parts of the country that have tuition of $3K or less. Still out of reach for some families, especially those with many children... but nothing like the way it is here.
For our family, the huge cost of private education makes Montessori teacher training and materials seem like a very good deal. Tuition here may be 3 times what it is in some other places, but a pink tower costs the same everywhere. (Of course, with the price of housing here, classroom space is at a real premium... if we have a few more children in our current place, we'll have to stack them like cordwood!)
BTW, I've found that high school tuition is usually about double the kindergarten tuition for a given school. Of course, by the time the current round of kindergarteners gets to high school, who knows... 
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SuzanneG
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Our parish, Catholic schools are "only" $4-5 k / year. K-8. I think once you get to high school, though, it's more. And, we're in Seattle (high cost of living)
Interesting.
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Suzanne in ID
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Eleanor
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SuzanneG wrote:
| Our parish, Catholic schools are "only" $4-5 k / year. K-8. I think once you get to high school, though, it's more. And, we're in Seattle (high cost of living) |
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I just looked up a couple of Montessori schools in Seattle, and they're a "mere" $6-7K... so, relatively speaking, the price difference is about the same as it is here.
Interestingly enough, from what I've observed, parents who send their children to Montessori schools -- and Suzuki music classes, which have a similar philosophy, and are also expensive -- seem to have larger families than average. Growing up, I was friends with a family (church-going mainline Protestants) with four children, who were all in Montessori from preschool to age 12. The mother also stayed home. The dad had a professional job, but not a particularly high-paying one. Needless to say, they scrimped and saved so they could afford the tuition. It must have been a huge amount, but I guess it was worth it to them.
Meanwhile, my own parents considered themselves to be "just getting by" on a similar income, although they only had two children who were both in public schools. I never could figure that one out... it seemed almost like a loaves and fishes scenario. 
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Philothea
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That's pretty steep. We have some Catholic Montessori schools in my area that run $3000-6000 for preschool (half-day). I will probably do that for my oldest son's 4-year-old year (and maybe his 5-year-old year, too, depending on how it goes), but I don't think he's ready for Montessori this year, he is a loud, social, creative squirmer and wiggler and probably would not use the materials properly or let the other kids do their work alone. I don't want him to spend his mornings being constantly corrected for just being himself.
He did attend a play-based parent co-op preschool (non-Montessori, although there are a lot of "Montessori-inspired" stations and activities) at a protestant church two days a week last year (age 2) and will go three days a week this year (age 3). It's been very good for him. If I could find a similar program at a Catholic Church nearby, I'd jump on it, but none have anything that I know of. We pay $185 a month, which I guess is like $1700 per year? I have to be in the classroom as an aide once a month, but I actually like that. There's always a parent in the classroom, which gives me peace of mind, and I like watching my son interact with his peers and the teacher.
The secular Montessori schools here are more expensive -- I'd say starting at $6000 for a partial-week program and quickly going up from there. I know it's $10K each for the one my friend's two preschool-aged daughters attend five days a week, but she is a partner in a big law firm and the cost is not a problem. It would be for us, so I'm glad the Catholic ones are cheaper.
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SuzanneG
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| Posted: Aug 11 2007 at 10:44pm | IP Logged
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My neighbor sent her dd to a co-op preschool, and paid $150/month. Parents had to work 1 day/week.
Could someone do a breakdown? DH and I were just trying to do the math.......which is completely stupid, as we don't know what we're talking about !!
So, let's say $6k/year X number of children. (How many dc are in a typical class anyway?)
$6k X 20 kids? = $120k / year Income
There are probably 2 teachers, right? What is a typical salary?
Then, rent. How much would rent be?
Anyone want to continue, or shall we stop?
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Suzanne in ID
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Eleanor
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Philothea wrote:
| The secular Montessori schools here are more expensive -- I'd say starting at $6000 for a partial-week program and quickly going up from there. I know it's $10K each for the one my friend's two preschool-aged daughters attend five days a week, but she is a partner in a big law firm and the cost is not a problem. It would be for us, so I'm glad the Catholic ones are cheaper. |
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It's good that you have multiple options. We only have one Catholic Montessori preschool within a reasonable distance, and to be honest, we decided right away that we weren't interested in the program, so we didn't even bother to ask about the fees. It's part of a larger school, and they only use Montessori for the preschool. Starting with K, it's "traditional style education," including homework for 5-year olds (which doesn't seem very "traditional" to me, but whatever). Even within the Montessori classroom, they seemed to be gearing the children up for that style of learning, e.g., there was a big emphasis on "circle time," where they taught academic concepts. Finally, the teacher was very inexperienced, and I'd never heard of the place where she got her training. I talked with her for a while, and didn't get the sense that she knew any more than I did about how/when to introduce the different materials, etc.
Maybe I'm naive, and most Montessori schools are like that, but it was kind of a disappointment. Oh, I forgot to mention that their equipment was somewhat beat-up and cheap-looking (bent bead chains, etc.), was displayed in assorted plastic bins, and included a lot of non-Montessori educational toys. Not that this would be a deal-breaker if we liked the school, but it helped to reinforce my feeling that I could do just as good of a job at home.
There's only one preschool that we liked well enough to be willing to send our children there, and we're still considering it if I get too swamped at some point. But it's secular, which is a sticking point for us. My daughter loves to talk about Jesus, Mary, saints, heaven, angels, devils, etc. (We're big fans of the Treasure Box books.) She isn't yet aware that there are people who don't share our faith, except in remote parts of the world where they've never heard of Jesus. I know she can't keep thinking this way forever, but she's only 3... can't I let it go on a while longer?  And I think it would be especially hard for her to discover that her beloved teacher... and most of her classmates... don't believe these things.
Still, my health and energy level aren't that great at the best of times, so I'm expecting to need some help with the older children when the new baby comes. In our area, a mother's helper is around $15/hr for someone pretty good (reliable enough to take kids to the park, willing to do a little light housekeeping, speaks English well, etc.). So it would work out to about the same cost as preschool. And she would just be doing "child maintenance," not Montessori.
(Then again, the Montessori teacher wouldn't fold and put away the children's laundry! )
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JoJo
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We're in Australia, so our costs are different (a fair bit lower than the $9-12K+ pa quoted here), but the Montessori preschools are still very few in between, and still very expensive compared to your standard play-based preschools - probably I'd say 4 to 6 times the price for four year olds.
However I have absolutely no regrets about sending my dd to a Montessori preschool - she benefited hugely, and although I can try to provide a similar environment at home, it just does not come close. The teachers are exceptionally patient and hardworking individuals, and the impact it had on my dd was just phenomenal. I do often wonder if she would be the same sort of a child had she not attended a Montessori preschool, and kept going to childcare & play-based kinder???
However as we hoping to move shortly to an area where there is no Montessori preschool, we decided not to start my ds (3.5 yo now) this year, and are homeschooling him along with my 6yo dd. And enjoying the time with my treasures (most of the time ).
I certainly understand your concerns about the cost - image how much equipment and materials you can buy for your homeschool for even a term's worth of fees!
Jo
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Eleanor
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JoJo wrote:
| I certainly understand your concerns about the cost - image how much equipment and materials you can buy for your homeschool for even a term's worth of fees! |
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This is how my husband looks at it. Even if I ended up putting the children in school next January, we'd still come out even. And the equipment has very good resale value.
I'm a frugal person by nature, and used to get upset about the cost of everything ("think of how many children could be fed in the third world!")... but my husband is committed to his job, so this is where we are for the time being. I've realized that stewardship is a big challenge for all of us, no matter what the particulars of our current situation might be.
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Land O' Cotton
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Wow! There's no Montessori school a drivable distance from me, but I know we couldn't afford it anyway (not with two older children in college too).
Now I'm not feeling so guilty about the cost of materials I'm ordering for our home!
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CatholicMommy
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I have not much time so haven't read all the above posts...
my son will be attending full day Montessori - and I mean FULL day (8:45 am until 5:40 pm) - and his tuition will run me $915.50 each month (Sept 5 through end of May) - I will have some subbing opportunities to bring down the price of tuition at the rate of $15 for every hour I work, and the director is working out a discount for me since I'll be in training this year.
But, yeah, OUCH.
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Topic: Oh My Stars (M school tuition)
