New York, NY
Basic Trust

Parents' Comments

Parent #1
BT is a great daycare and preschool -- progressive, warm, thoughtful. It's guiding philosophy is to extend the child's family and to develop loving relationships between teachers and children and among the children. An indication of the loyalty and fondness BT generates is the number of BT alum (children and parents) who come back in some capacity: to intern, for summer jobs, to help with fundraisers, to visit the teachers and the director and so on. Fantastic!

Parent #2
My husband and I had a very bad experience with Basic Trust and we want to warn others. Let me preface by saying our son never actually attended the school, so I can't comment on the program. We put down a deposit in March when it was due and then, after my husband's salary was cut by 25%, we made the tough decision to leave Manhattan altogether and withdraw our son. We notified the director right away of our decision -- only 4 weeks after we had made the deposit. We figured that, given that it was April and there was a waitlist, there would be plenty of time to find a replacement. The director notified us that the board would have a meeting as to whether to give us our money back -- and whether to hold us to the entire 12 month contract. We fully expected to lose our "$750 non-refundable deposit." The language was very clear on this. But we did not expect to lose our tuition money or be held to the contract. The board decided to refund our non-refundable deposit (?) but to keep the larger tuition check. In exchange, we were relinquished from the full year contract. We appealed to the director that we were leaving the city for financial reasons. Moreover, because we were leaving New York, our son would lose the free therapies he was receiving for various motor delays and we would have to pay for them out of pocket. We never received a response to our calls or letter. I know these are hard financial times for everyone, but I would expect a daycare with as solid a reputation as Basic Trust to at least get back to us. We were quite shocked and disappointed -- and so relieved we had not sent our son to this school.

Montessori? Waldorf? Play-based?

What school type is right for your child? Is one model better than another? What does the research say?

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Trace around your child's foot, with shoe on, on a piece of white construction paper or card stock. Have child cut out the shoe print and add a spooky face. Glue it to a popsicle stick and you have a ghost stick puppet!

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