We recently moved to Austin and after studying and visiting various children's centers, settled on Stepping Stone on Brodie Lane for our young child. Our initial positive impressions grew less positive as the weeks went by until we decided after several months that for our child's mental, emotional and physical well-being, it was best to leave the school.\r
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Most of our visits to the school were unannounced because we wanted to see how our child was adapting. We found that 4 out of 10 times, the ratio of students to teachers (adults) present in the room was over the Texas state law limit. Children were seldom in a controlled situation (as in all participating in circle time) as many were loud and extremely physical. Our child came home upset many times because of another's physical behavior (hitting, kicking, slapping, even spitting). We always asked our child what interesting thing had been learned or observed or done and there was rarely a positive answer. Additionally, our child was sometimes not in the scheduled room but in another.\r
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We admire our child's teacher's ability to withstand not just the detrimental policy of not properly disciplining disruptive children (the Stepping Stone policy dictates 'redirection' though as any parent and educator knows, this is sometimes insufficient and/or ineffective for certain children) but also for not receiving the professional support she so obviously needs. We also admire her for staying positive in her interactions with all the children despite the dysfunction of the classroom. We have no complaints with any of the other staff either, as from the director all the way to the school cook were fantastic with our child and pro-active concerning our issues. Still, we expected more in the sense of ""day care"" and a ""safe, nurturing environment"" for our child and were sorely disappointed with Stepping Stone #14.\r
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Our child is now in a new school in South Austin and after just five days, wouldn't change it for the world.
Pros: some really fantastic room teachers, caring staff
Cons: Unshaded outdoor jungle gyms, failure to remove repeteadly very disruptive children from the school
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