Phoenix School

Wonderful school.

The most wonderful, loving neighborhood school. More than we could have asked for for our son. The teachers are amazing, the director and assistant director are angels, and the board is full of parents who are giving their time (for free!) to make sure it remains a happy, supportive, and safe space for our children. When our son was six months old, he got pretty sick and we had to pull him out of school for two months while the doctors ran some tests. Obviously, it was exorbitantly expensive to pay both tuition and for a nanny during this time. Without batting an eye, the board and director worked with us to ease the financial burden during the stressful, scary time. As I said in an email at the time, and still believe now, "this underscores why we picked the Phoenix School and is just another example of how lucky we are to be part of the community." While Phoenix is a small, neighborhood school housed in a church basement, it's always clean and always ringing with love... for our children, for our teachers, and for each other. You'll rarely walk through the school without teachers from every classroom (babies, 1s, 2s, 3s, etc.) popping their head out to say goodbye to your child, by name. They serve multiple meals per day that may not always be organic, but are nutritious and balanced. If you're looking for a loving, safe community to send your precious child everyday while you have to work, I couldn't recommend the Phoenix School more.

While we were excited to have our kids join the Phoenix School based on the online reviews and state funded pre-K, we had no choice but to pull them out after just a few weeks. While most of the teachers seemed caring and capable, there was a toxic dynamic fueled by one particular teacher that is clearly condoned by the school’s management. Virtually every time we observed this teacher we witnessed him barking orders at the kids and losing his cool. Aggressive, condescending, and authoritative. It appeared as if he was trying to force obedience through intimidation. Zero manners or etiquette used. Certainly not the kind of behavior we use at home or want modeled for our kids 40 hours per week. We gave it a little time as we all have bad days, but after multiple instances of observing this behavior we met with the school’s Director to discuss the situation. We presented our concerns in a constructive, example based fashion and were met with nothing but defensiveness. No notes taken, no next steps, no anything. We were essentially told that many parents are supportive of this “no nonsense” approach and that it was more of a shtick than truly authoritative behavior. Sadly I don’t believe three year olds have the capacity to precisely delineate between a shtick and someone being intimidating. At this point we had lost all confidence in the school and pulled our kids. An enormous inconvenience, but necessary. Even though we had made up our minds about leaving we felt obligated to discuss our experience to the board of the school. I asked the head of the board to call me to discuss everything three times and was repeatedly told that I had two options, come in and speak in person during their monthly meeting or put everything in writing. The director of the board later attempted to implicate that I was only voicing concerns because I wanted money back. This interaction certainly validated our decision to leave. Other miscellaneous concerns included: regular cockroach sightings, run down facilities, noncompliance to the mobile app (Kinderlime), processed food served from single-use packaging, and that we continued to receive app activity entires after leaving the school. We have since learned that there is a contingency of parents that have had a similar experience at Phoenix School. I’ll again note that the majority of the people at Phoenix School seemed fine, but when it comes childcare, one weak link breaks the chain.

Wonderful, small-scale preschool with a local community feeling. Emphasis on parental involvement. Most teachers have a long tenure with the school, many have been teaching at Phoenix for 10 or even 20 years!