Bridges Montessori

Hello, this is Jen Bridges, Head of School at Bridges Montessori.

I was not surprised to see the negative review of our school which came on December 4, 2020. I am completely open to discussing any concerns raised by that review with either current or future parents. Please contact me through the school office and we can arrange a time to meet. I truly wish the family that left the review all the best, both now and in the future.

Even when feedback is painful or negative, if people offer feedback on the school, I try to see if there is anything to learn from it in order to do a better job in the future.

It seems impossible, but I have been involved in Montessori education for 25 years now (I am currently 52 y.o.????). Our school, Bridges Montessori, is going to be 20 years old in 2022! We started with one 3-6 year old classroom in Towson in 2002. Through the years, we have added Montessori programs for additional ages, so that we now serve Infants through 6th grade.

I love my job. The job hasn’t always been easy and, through the years, I have certainly made mistakes. Buying our Bel Air location and building our Elementary Program was a lot of work. Learning how to manage effective communication with 100-150 families, certainly was a challenge for our Administrative Team in the beginning. We feel our school has effective parent/teacher communication processes and that the Admin Team is accessible and responsive. Current parent feedback seems to support this. That being said, I truly apologize if I was not fully available to a family at any time their child was with us in the past.

I will say, however, that our Parent Communications Director, Susanne, is absolutely wonderful. She is an amazing and compassionate liaison between the classrooms and the parent community. Susanne arranges parent/teacher conferences, tracks down needed information, answers questions and maintains a rollicking sense of humor about it all!

I also firmly stand behind the educational quality of all of our programs. From the Infant Program through our Upper Elementary, our teachers are capable, enthusiastic and supported. Our teaching staff is long term, with many teachers remaining with the school since its inception. We are always involved in training new Montessori teachers as well and are glad to keep Montessori educational philosophy alive and vibrant in our school.

When a family is interested in exploring Montessori education for their child, we welcome them to tour either of our schools’ locations. In Towson, we serve Infants through Kindergarten. In Bel Air, we serve 2 year olds through 6th grade. I always lead the tours for perspective families. I do this because it is so important for parents to meet the Head of School to assure that our educational philosophies are compatible and all questions are answered. If you are interested in learning more about Montessori and our school’s program, please call us and set up a tour. I look forward to meeting you.

I do not want to engage in conflict with the reviewer and respect her right to her perspective, however, I am going to leave 5 stars for our school’s students, teachers, staff and parent community. I am grateful to work and grow with you every day.

As parents we have had the worst experience with Bridges Montessori School. We have had 2 kids there (2 years each), Ages 3-5. Here are a few things you should know before you send your kid here..

Horrible Communication
-- You are not allowed to email, call, or text the teachers directly... all communication is through the Compass and is routed through a "director of communications" where you often receive passive aggressive responses that are uninformed.
--- If your child gets in trouble during the day.. or radically misbehaves (as one of ours has in the past)... You will not receive a phone call, or talk when you pick up your kid... but sometimes a behavior report late in the evening... after you child has already told you the bad news leaving lots of questions as a parent.
-- Sudden changes to contracts, where you sign up to pay $9.3K a year for 5 days a week... and find out during the term, teachers need more time to clean up and plan... and now your down to 4.5 days of kids in school with no compensation or reconsideration of price and given only 2 days to accept the changes in contract.

Lack of Learning - Don't expect to receive quality weekly plans for what your kids will be learning. Instead the written plan, and I quote is “We will continue to have impromptu lessons”. Our child tell us about all the Mickey Mouse Club House, Magic School Bus, and Cat in the Hat videos they would watch every day....

Finally, given the COVID pandemic... we expect the highest level of sanitization, health practices and ethically responsible behavior set by the teachers for our kids class social bubble.... HOWEVER on several occasions our 3 yr old was sent to timeout in the bathroom, unsupervised when the teachers could not handle her behavior which is a high traffic area and the most unsanitary location full of dirty diapers.
We were disgusted as parents when we discovered this through our daughter telling us "I had timeout in the bathroom".... When we asked the school what happened, the owner replied "If your kid cannot behave, and you do not allow us to put your child in the bathroom for timeout, then you have to come pick them up".... We told her this was unacceptable, and they did it again a week later… And still did not notify us until late in the evening several hours after the incident by email only.