The kindergarten teachers are old and grouchy, and are overdue for retirement! They behave as though they are running a military boot camp. They are unnecessarily and exceedingly mean and impatient with the kindergarten students. They will become angry and scold students who are already upset and crying, unnecessarily making the kids MUCH more upset. They choose their two to three favourite students, and all the other children are picked on CONSTANTLY.
They spend about 45+ consecutive minutes just talking at the students ("teaching"). Those poor 5 y/o get so bored and squirmy that they lose concentration. Then the teachers start calling them out and waste A LOT of time disruptively disciplining, rather than changing activities and getting the students standing up or moving around. There is little to no thought or effort put into lesson plans. The teaching is not the least bit engaging, and as a result the students' learning suffers, AND students are disciplined for it.
Students who are easily distracted are seated next to VERY distracting kids, by the teachers, and then blamed, scolded, and ranted at, and are reduced to tears, for not completing their work. Basically the students are set up for failure by the teachers, and then blamed for it.
Parental concerns are incredibly unwelcome! If you send a politely worded email, it will be ignored and not responded to. If you send a follow up email, you will be told that "you should contact the principal if you really have a problem!" If you try to calmly talk to the teachers in person, they will immediately interrupt you and start talking over you, vehemently disagreeing with you, and telling you that you are wrong! They are going to do things THEIR way, they treat parents as enemies, and they do NOT care about their students AT ALL! ( Other than their 2-3 favourites).
The privacy of students is not respected and gets breached. At parent teacher interviews, parents are shown the assessment results of ALL the students in the class! The kindergarten teachers have a list of all the kids in the class, and do not cover up the other names or scores. In fact, the kindergarten teachers drew my attention to some of the other kids names and their scores, at more than one parent teacher interview! I cannot begin to tell you how shocked I was by that!
The office staff are occasionally polite, but most of the time are grouchy and passive aggressive to students AND parents.
If you are looking for a place to enroll your child in kindergarten, stay VERY far away from Esther Starkman School!