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Our family tremendously values our 12 years at Montessori Tides School. Both of our children attended from age 2 years through 3rd grade. Before having children, we thought the most important time to pay for private education was in the high school years. After just a few months at Tides with our first born, we quickly changed our mind. What we were learning as a family was invaluable to the quality of our life. We later learned Tides prepared the foundation for our children’s future academic success and more importantly, their social skills and connection to the greater community. We remain grateful for the patience and caring approach of Tides staff over the years. Personality-wise, one of our children was considered “easy” the other a bit more “challenging.” The school maintains a strong commitment to valuing the child and seeing each as an individual while also respecting each child’s personal developmental time table. Our children (currently, a high school senior and first year public middle school student) have truly been molded by the Montessori environment. Because Montessori teaches independence, we are rarely involved in our children’s school work. Except for buying supplies, our children manage their school assignments, long term-projects, and papers with out our input. They both share tremendous compassion for others which we attribute to the Montessori environment – grace and courtesy lessons as well as its focus on peaceful conflict resolution. Early on, our children sought ways to be of service in our neighborhood and community. In addition to regularly volunteering, both children have had jobs since early elementary. In fact, at age 8, our son managed an 18-month lawn contract for a neighbor who had moved to China. He was confident in verbally negotiating the deal, drafting the written contract, and maintaining the lawn each week. Prior to enrolling in Tides, we had heard from other Montessori parents whose children were then in college – that an early childhood education in a Montessori environment was the key to their children’s stability and success as individuals. We believe every penny we spent at Tides has returned to our family 1,000-fold. We are better parents because of what we learned in the environment. We are better community volunteers. And our children feel grounded with a complete acceptance of who they each are as individuals. The bonus – both of our children are academically strong – blowing away FCAT’s with 5’s and ACT’s in the 99% percentile – and of course, the straight A’s continue to show up each quarter. We think all those years at Tides and not focusing on grades and just developing a love and a passion for learning has truly paid off. Montessori Tides prepared each member of our family well to do the work we are each called to do.
Lisa & Tony Long
Proud Former Montessori Tides Parents
