THIS IS THE EMAIL I SENT THE WHOLE CLASS:
Dear Quail Parents,
In the spirit of openness & dialogue, I would like to share with the whole class what is really happening because without a doubt, you can’t trust what Sam is saying because he has lied to our faces in our meeting with him yesterday.
“When a flower doesn’t bloom, you fix the environment in which it grows, not the flower.” ~ Alexander Den Heijer
In Sam’s email yesterday, he lied again, he said, "We are committed to every child experiencing MMS as a safe and caring community"
What about our son? This is a flat out lie as we have learned first hand and you have absolutely done nothing about it and by our meeting with you yesterday, it’s very clear that NOTHING is going to change at this school which is why it hasn’t in years. Bullying has been happening for years in the Quail classroom, 2 years ago, this same epidemic of bullying was happening and was escalated to Sam & Jules, but when I asked Sam about this, he outright lied to me saying he didn’t know anything about it. In fact, the whole meeting was all about protecting the school, NOT the students , which as a parent is very concerning because now I understand Sam is running this school like a business, not a non-profit school. To Sam, our kids are merely products in a factory which is why staff thinks mostly about themselves and their own WANTS OVER the NEEDS of the kids who are funding the school which is why MMS Staff enjoy clean filtered water while our kids drink toxic tap water loaded with cancer causing chemicals way above national averages as you can see here. The EWG shows 8 contaminants above health guidelines which significantly increase cancer risk along with 11 others:
This is why instead of focusing on maximizing the learning experience of the kids at the school, he is maximizing the number of kids that are in the school. Sam is the ONLY one realizing any value here because the more the school makes, the more he makes. This is also why instead of using the new property for MUCH NEEDED open play space, the school is going to be further overdeveloped and overwhelmed with more and more kids diminishing the learning experience of the overwhelming number of kids this school is already FAILING. You’re packing these kids in such a small space like sardines since the landscape doesn’t meet the needs of the students and then your seriously restricting their freedom to go play outside. I looked Sam in the eyes and said, "you intentionally put our son in a " fully loaded mousetrap" being fully aware of the bullying epidemic for years now, yet you have absolutely failed to address and resolve the problems. I will be the first one to say it, without any doubt, from the TOP DOWN, Jules & Sam, this entire school is being run by bullying so it’s no wonder you want to sweep it under the rug as it runs deep within the school and so the kids are not stupid, since they can see what is happening, so they are engaging in the same behavior that the school is encouraging. Just like you guys took advantage of bullying a teacher at a time when she was suffering from a serious illness. SICK, Heartless people that only care about money & power seriously jeopardizing kids learning. Our friend was STRANGLED BY A TEACHER @ MMS and NO ONE SAID A WORD until the parent found out from the child which Jules knows ALL ABOUT.
My wife and me have been bullied by staff and other parents at the school, especially for donating money, matter of fact, several of these parents high up in the school, filling the kegs of kool-aid, only feel the need to reach out to us when they want money. Because of how the whole school bullies parents & staff into donating money and turning it into a competition literally exploiting rich peoples weaknesses of status, ego, and belonging. Sam, we and other parents see right through this deception and if you really wanted 100% participation, you should create a school where parents, staff, and kids grow in a positive learning environment with FULL transparency, a place that we can all be proud to be a part of where kids have the freedom to play outside as much as they want because what kind of Montessori school confines a child’s learning to a box restricting their freedom to “think outside the box.” Parents should also have the freedom to visit the school much more often, like anytime they want, maybe with short notice, since they are entrusting you with their kids, so parents can BUILD and KEEP their trust with the school, instead you do the opposite, limiting a parents classroom observation to only ONE DAY A YEAR, two if their lucky which seriously begs the question what does this school have to hide?
These “Troubled Group” of kids are just following a vicious cycle of bullying that spills over to all the new young kids year after year. MMS created these bullies, so they should take responsibility for them instead of just throwing them in a “Troubled Group” which does nothing to resolve problems. You know what they do at other schools with troubled kids, they send them to a school specifically for troubled kids because they are very poor influences on the other kids in class. In a Montessori setting, these older kids are supposed to be leaders, not bullies negatively influencing the younger kids, so from a Montessori perspective, the Quail class has been a COMPLETE FAILURE. But MMS values parents money MUCH more than they care about children learning. At MMS, it’s clear that Property Development precedes Child Development so the school can collect more money while providing less value and getting more and more expensive year after year, but many parents aren’t seeing that value. Your son or daughter could just as well be a victim as ours and don’t think they will be forthcoming in bringing this to your attention, because as our case and many others has shown, they wont do anything. They bunch these kids into a “Troubled Group” further limiting their learning experience and then they treat them with complete and utter disrespect against everything Maria Montessori stood for and what we have all learned from speaking events by MMS such as Barbara Coloroso who said that “time-outs are not effective in encouraging positive behavior in children.” Yet, Colleen will put our son and others in timeout in the corner of the classroom by himself while he just sits there and watches the class and this is what you call learning? I know from talking with other parents that SO many things are happening in class and at this school that are Anti-Montessori, to the point, this school isn’t even being run as a TRUE Montessori school. I see other Montessori schools that have mud pits and really engage children in learning so they want to learn, and then I look at MMS and I see the controlling, manipulating, and greed that have been extremely detrimental to learning at such a young precious age when they are like sponges, this is how you are treating them & us, thus teaching them. The kids may as well take a swim over to San Quentin where there is sadly more freedom & choice, after all the prisoners enjoy more outdoor time and have more outdoor space to play than kids do at MMS and I am sure there is even more learning happening.
Maria Montessori said:
The greatest sign of success for a teacher… is to be able to say, ’The children are now working as if I did not exist.’
But the reality is, as I pointed out in my letter to Sam, Colleen can’t leave her classroom for a minute without things going completely haywire as I experienced with her & the assistant during my classroom observation months ago with BOTH of them IN the classroom. From my classroom observation a month or so ago, I was shocked to see multiple kids literally roughhousing & wresting in the day room for a long while without anyone noticing which as I understand is not allowed, but this speaks volumes that the kids ARE NOT getting the playtime they need outside. As we have discussed with other parents, we think Colleen has good intentions, but as we told Sam yesterday, she really fails to communicate with parents about what is really happening in the class and in cases where situations do arise, there is a severe lack of diligence in actually resolving problems. Many parents also think Colleen is completely overwhelmed with all the students and everything happening in class so many serious issues go unnoticed and unresolved forever until the unthinkable happens and the school is forced to face reality. Then whatever happened with the assistant teacher seems to have had a big impact on the class. MMS couldn’t hold things together for one more month without screwing up the classroom environment. But we also know Colleen works with Sam in keeping secrets and not giving parents the full picture which is why I discussed with Sam why the school would BAN Assistants on a CONTRACT from discussing with parents about their kids because in many cases, assistants have a better grasp and understanding about situations because the teacher actually spends very little time individually with the kids. The mathematical equation looks like this: 24 ÷ 6 = 0.25 minutes each kid, IF THEY ARE LUCKY, so you have a bunch of troubled kids, a teacher who’s unable to give them the love and attention they need, and a corrupt Head of School who ignores and downplays problems so nothing ever improves. Meanwhile, we have very young kids who are trying to learn how to survive in such a cruel and heartless environment, it’s no wonder bullying is such an epidemic at MMS.
Sam responds by sending emails such as the recent Thursday Bulletin with Sam’s Spotlight highlighting the serious decline in empathy amongst young people, but as I have found and informed him, the decline is due to the decline of play which is roughly linear with the increase in anxiety and depression. There is even a Ted Talk about it! As the following Montessori school points out, “Children need free unstructured playtime to protect their emotional development.”
Restricting kids to only 2 necklaces to go outside IS NOT UNSTRUCTURED PLAY and then you wonder why there are so many “Troubled Kids” and it’s getting worse. Often our son would tell us he didn’t get the opportunity to go play outside during class because other kids, especially older kids, most often have the necklaces. Since outdoor playtime is severely restricted and limited to 2 necklaces, many kids end up spending much more time in the classroom doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING than they would if they were given the choice to freely go outside to play. Our kids are not given unstructured playtime, the whole school day is controlled and manipulated, so really at the end of the day, kids have VERY LITTLE choice in doing what they really want to do because our son loves to play outside and spends most of his day outside, of course, sadly our backyard is bigger than the schools campus , but Sam doesn’t seem to care about solutions that don’t fit his AGENDA, even if it negatively impacts the learning experience, his goal will always be maximizing revenue. This is why it’s not surprising at all to see such a major epidemic of bullying because from the Top Down, kids are being bullied and controlled to do things they don’t want to do instead of realizing and building upon children’s strengths to build leaders, they are exploiting their weaknesses to create bullies.
He should be working @ Monsanto, not MMS, which is why I will likely NOT be the first parent to ask him to do the right thing by RESIGNING from the school for the 2020-2021 school year because he is directly responsible for resolving these problems and he has 100% failed for years. But I will give Sam credit where credit is due because he is a MASTER at writing emails that paint a very pretty picture, but unfortunately he doesn’t paint the WHOLE picture and because of this, this is how the whole school operates on secrets and half-truths because I believe if most parents knew the truth about what is really happening at this school and in this classroom, they would not send their kids to school Monday. Sam may be smart, but he’s definitely NOT genuine which is why most of our meeting he was literally saying, mm…huh, because his intentions were not to reach out to help us at all. His intentions were the exact opposite which is exactly why he did NOT address the fact that we’re the ones facing ALL the Consequences even though our son is the victim , from his complete failure to take serious action in resolving bullying FOR YEARS, he seems to think pretty emails will Satisfy Most Parents, I guess we can all put our heads back in the sand now. Sadly, what’s worse for MMS is nothing could PROVE what I am saying is true more than the actions of the Staff themselves, which is why the school suffers from extremely HIGH turnover. I would wager that the local McDonald’s suffers from less turnover. This whole process works like a domino effect as parents are slowly, but surely waking up and leaving the school because of the inherent problems that are NOT being resolved for years now. For Sam, playing the numbers game, it’s easier to recruit new unsuspecting victims to the school than resolve all the problems that people bring forth.
After this terrible bullying experience, my wife asked Sam, since he has 2 high school kids, if he has watched “13 Reasons Why”, which was filmed right in his neighborhood and ours and he said that “he hasn’t, nor does he want to,” because at MMS, if it’s out of sight, it’s out of mind, he is NOT open to understanding the problem further and exploring solutions which makes him NEGLIGENT in continuing to be part of the problem. I started discussing Montessori education with Sam and he literally told me & my wife that he does not know much of anything about Montessori education and that we should talk to Colleen which is the nail in the coffin because it shows that he is running this school so education & learning are not nearly as important as greed and power. Remember, my original email below about values & principles, well, if your words don’t reflect your actions, which they don’t, and you’re the Head of School, and my child has become a victim because of your failure to do anything substantive, we are going to do everything in our power to bring light to darkness and healing to immense suffering. The control, manipulation, secrets, greed, corruption from the TOP DOWN needs to STOP because it is robbing these kids of their childhood ambitions to play and be kids. Sam, MMS should NOT be run like a Chinese child labor factory, so PLEASE RESIGN so the school can move forward in a positive direction because MMS can’t fix corruption without removing the perpetrators. In case you didn’t already know, this is exactly why things never get better at MMS! One thing is for sure, Sam is not going to take any responsibility for your kids futures. Parents, please realize that you are sending your loved ones to a school that contractually takes NO Responsibility for your their safety and NO accountability for their learning, yet takes in awful lot of money.
The word Education comes from the latin word Educe which means to draw forth or bring out the strengths of a person, but instead your school runs on ignorance ill-preparing kids with a lack of the basic necessities they need to thrive in the world, clean water & play, along with the attention and love they so desperately need, that they are obviously NOT getting from the teacher. Instead of “Troubled Group”, how about “Troubled School”, it’s important we place the responsibility where it should be and quit deflecting, yes, Sam that means your going to need to look in the mirror and seriously reflect on all the DAMAGE that’s been happening for years because it’s time for you to RESIGN.