Waldorf School of Pittsburgh - Reviews by Parents

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anonymous ‎ - 4 months ago

Little Friends is just awful! Had to take our child out because of their incompetence. They do not handle criticism well and get very defensive when any questions are asked. I would NOT recommend Little Friends to anyone, which is a shame, considering the rest of the school seems to be wonderful. It really stems from poor management by the lead teachers, Juliet and Virginia...also neither of them have any formal Waldorf training. Actually, there is only 1 caregiver who has formal training and she is only part time. The yellow house is consistently messy, smelly, and dirty (especially the bathroom and cubby room) and the grounds in which the children play outside are overgrown and unkempt (lots of poison ivy). Overall, not a good environment for the children. Very poorly organized and managed- if they could get a good lead teacher in there (who has Waldorf training) things would improve immensely.


anonymous ‎ - 9 months ago

The grades may be fine, but the Little Friends program can be scary if your child ends up in the wrong hands. The coordinator of LF has absolutely NO training in early childhood (but she has a degree in theatre!) and NO compassion either. Our child was neglected and bruised himself badly on the 3rd day of LF; also, each of the three days he was there, he was with a different caregiver. After the accident the LF coordinator told us our child didn't belong there, and lied to us about what happened to our child--we still don't know whether he was supervised or not. Apologies started much later, when we started to ask more and more questions. Staff knew nothing about our child when he started--how in the world can one "educate head, heart, and hands" when you know nothing about a child?

PK here: The above page of reviews (check it out) has a couple of responses to criticism from the "owner" of the school.  These indicate denial to me - and to the parents apparently.  Read on...

http://www.greatschools.org/school/parentReviews.page?id=4958&state=PA#from..HeaderLink

Posted January 6, 2012

Little Friends is just awful! Had to take our child out because of their incompetence. They do not handle criticism well and get very defensive when any questions are asked. I would NOT recommend Little Friends to anyone, which is a shame, considering the rest of the school seems to be wonderful. It really stems from poor management by the lead teachers. The yellow house is consistently messy, smelly, and dirty (especially the bathroom and cubby room) and the grounds in which the children play outside are overgrown and unkempt (lots of poison ivy). Very poorly organized and managed- if they could get a good lead teacher in there (who has Waldorf training) things would improve immensely. Parent involvement is not encouraged and very little feedback is given to parents regarding their children.  —Submitted by a parent

 

Posted October 18, 2010

This is not an optimal school for parents or children. The atmosphere is rigid and unsupportive of difference.  —Submitted by a parent

 http://minerscanary.blogspot.com/2009/03/by-way-on-bullying-waldorf-schools-and.html

November 6, 2010 8:21 PM 

Anonymous said...

We just removed our son from a Waldorf School (Pittsburgh) due to very severe problems with race based taunting that was driven by his teacher. The adminstration considered the problem to be minor and took little action to improve the situation. They began to threaten us with expulsion when we asked too many questions. I am a social worker and am very open minded to alternative beliefs, but these folks were a problem. Parents should think very carefully about sending children to these schools because if something goes wrong with your child's fit with classmates there are no mechanisms for correcting problems like in more traditional schools.