Four Corners Montessori Academy, Madison Heights | Fees, Rankings, Address, Admission, Vacancies, Reviews & More

Former student graduating from the year of 2016-2017 here, I have considered writing this for a while and wanted to collect my thoughts about it for a bit, I am not sure if the school is still like it is today, who knows, it could have improved, but from what I heard from students who left after I am not 100% sure.

Lower Elementary
I thought Lower Elementary was alright, I was in the Sassafras room 2009-2011 I think, I do not really remember. I didn’t really have a lot of friends at the time, the friends I did have didn’t really actually like me and probably just had me around to make fun of me. Where this isn’t really the schools fault, the teachers never really did anything about it, and when they did they would choose to blame everyone involved, and never really cared to hear out everything that happened. And I would always get in trouble because I would be in the middle of other students beating me up, or fighting back and getting in trouble. And the teachers didn’t really understand that kids sometimes have issues with making friends and get in the wrong crowds. But the way they taught was pretty innovative and unique, and I liked that a lot. We would do more hands on tasks and I think it was a lot better for me then traditional learning.

Upper Elementary
Upper Elementary was probably the best part of the school for me, I started to make more friends and I really liked my first teacher Ms. Shannon, she was really nice and understanding, unfortunately she left a year later. The way they taught was roughly the same, and I liked that. Even after Ms. Shannon left, I still liked my teachers a lot, and I felt that they really took into consideration the feelings of the students. The only complaint I really have is that I still don’t really think the teachers really knew how to handle things with other students, and were very strict about phone policies, and you would often get in trouble for little scenarios like trying to contact your parents during an emergency. Overall though, the Upper Elementary was very enjoyable for me.

Middle School
Oh boy, here we have the big one. If I could give the Middle School individual stars, I would give the Middle School 1 star. I hated the Middle School, and I would recommend that after Upper Elementary school you take your student out and take them to traditional school, I don’t really even think the Montessori format really works past Elementary School, you need to go to Traditional School after this point to get a grasp on what the real world is, because this doesn’t prepare you for life at all. We would do Math in a different way then traditional school and do “Courses”, you’re placed in a Course dependent on what your math skills are, Course 1 = Behind in Math, Course 2 = 7th grade math, and Course 3 = 8th grade math. I was placed in Course 2 in 7th and 8th grade, and went into high school not knowing anything that’s going on because I never went into Course 3, and barely passed Algebra 1 due to not knowing anything I should know. Most of the assignments we did were just repeats of previously assignments, not really gaining any new knowledge, and just repeating previous knowledge. And repeats the previous problem of teachers not really understanding what’s going on, and making it worse. I got in trouble and was suspended for 2 weeks and taken off a school trip for something that had no proof to it, which is pretty unfair since the trip was Chicago. The school didn’t have an actual playground, and sometimes we would make up for it by going to Rosie’s Park, and often there would be this one student who would misbehave, and it would cause the whole class to have to wait, and we would only get five minutes worth of recess time pretty much everyday, I understand that not every school even has the luxury of recess in the first place during Middle School, but it’s unfair to be offered something and have it taken away just because one student decided he wanted to be a jerk that day.

I would give zero stars if possible. The school is an unsafe environment. My child has been injured numerous times there by other children. Anytime an incident has happened they wait hours to contact us. The culture is that the children are aggressive and mean, and the staff won’t step in. His teacher had denied him going to the office for prescribed and otc medicine multiple times, until we reached out to address it. The final straw was today when they said my child blurted out a racist word in class. He has multiple mixed race family members and we NEVER use this type of language at home. He was taught the gravity of racism at a very young age. He sobbed as he told me they misheard him when he was talking about snacks with some other boys. He is terrified to return to school because he thinks his teacher and other staff members will think he’s racist. My 9 year old has been left emotionally traumatized from 1 year at this school. The person who recommended the school to us has pulled their child from the school due to aggressive behavior from other kids and non-action from the staff. This school feels more like a poorly ran charter school than a Montessori. Do yourself and your child a favor and enroll them anywhere else.

Edit: You can improve by not being so terrible at communicating. Maybe moving my child to another classroom like we asked several months ago?

My son has improved his math skills because of the awesome math teacher that he has at Four corners. She is so sweet and kind with the kids and has a lot of patience. My son’s teachers are passionate about teaching their students and work hard to make sure the students are academically succeeding. During this pandemic, the teachers have worked hard to do their best in creating a stable schedule and provide as much help as they can to my son and his classmates online. I can see that the teachers not only care about the success of the students, they also care about their emotional and mental well being during the pandemic.

Thank you Four corners