When we were considering Lesley Ellis for preschool, we asked around on the playground, and just…read moreabout every parent we talked to told us, "It's excellent! The only negative is the cost." That matched our experience perfectly. The tuition is steep - though financial aid is available! - but everything else was fantastic, and we were consistently impressed with the teachers, curriculum, field trips, awareness of kids as individuals, interaction with administration, and more. My mom worked for decades in early childhood education, and (as an interested and involved grandparent) was also very impressed. They welcomed/encouraged heavy parent involvement, from "come into the classroom to talk about something you're knowledgeable/passionate about" to occasional parent-meetups-over-coffee in the morning and more. But I was never, ever made to feel guilty about not being able to participate heavily, which was the norm once we had our second kid. (Who also went to LES for preschool, once old enough.) We can't speak to their K-8 experience, but for preschool/pre-K/TK they were fantastic.

Lesley Ellis is an independent school from pre-school to grade 6, but expanding soon to 8th. Our…read moredaughter is in her third year there and we have been delighted with the program. The teachers are an outstanding group and attuned to the needs of each individual student. The administration is truly exceptional as they create an environment where parents, children and the school come together to form a nurturing and vibrant community.

I've been meaning to write a review on this place for about two years now. First of all, I can't…read moretell you how much they pissed me off - twice, in fact. I can't comment on the therapeutic benefit of the Academy. We enrolled our son (CM) for about 9 months at the encouragement of his teachers. Enrollment is by quarter and paid in advance. Does my son have social problems? I don't think so. Did his social skills improve after he attended? Hard to say. Maybe he's a little less pigheaded and dominating. OK, here's what bothered me: We called the Academy for an initial meeting with the Director. We were assessing the place and its programs. It is a for-profit operation, although they promote the fact they provide training for graduate students from BC and other local colleges. We had a pleasant meeting and then a week or two later, I get a bill for $60. Here I am paying for the privilege to learn about the programs. I called to inquire, got an evasive answer but paid the bill anyway. Near the end, I ran into problems with one of the lead counselors. Very, very sanctimonious. Started hitting me with the mandated reporter threats. She only had a small snapshot of what was going on. I was dealing with something I was fully aware of and I didn't need the added stress of her threats. I am being purposely non-specific here. I know what the problem is and I have dealt with it successfully for many years. OK, lead counselor, you tell me I have a problem. I know I have a problem (the problem isn't with me or my child). So give me a solution to my problem. I bet she couldn't. Here's the stupidity...if you are going to threaten me at an activity that is voluntary on my part, I'm not going to come back. I'm not going to put myself or my son in harms way. They say they're good, and if they say they're good, they must be good. Don't believe it. And trust your gut about your child. And his or her teachers.

We highly recommend the Academy. We had our child in one of their programs for almost a year now…read more It's been very helpful. Something we can't fully claim from working with a couple of child psychologists in the past. Every kid is different, but it seems that an environment with a group of peers was a better place to learn and mature socially, at least in our case. The program that we were in definitely works. The Academy was very helpful to us. We've received some great parenting ideas and strategies. All in all, we can highly recommend the program. It's not for every child, definitely not, but if you child struggles to keep up with his peers socially, this might be a good place to try. As far as billing issues mentioned in one of the reviews here, we've never had any issues. It's a small organization, it's not a retail business, but we've never had any customer service issues. In fact, we have always been able to easily get in touch with someone via phone or email.

A really supportive, caring place for students needing special education and mental health supports.read more

I can not say enough good thing about the commonwealth learning center and about my child's tutor…read moreAmy. my child was struggling with reading was diagnosed with dyslexia and was becoming so discouraged with his school. since Working with Amy his reading has improved tremendously and his confidence. Amy works so well with my child always keeps me up to date with everything they are working on and my child is comfortable working with her. We are so so happy with this learning center .

My daughter and I met with Alex, the director, for an initial consult. Alex was well-prepared,…read morehaving read, highlighted, and annotated the test results I sent to her ahead of time. She also was prepared with a set of questions based on that material. Alex is caring, thoughtful, and even during the initial meeting demonstrated deep knowledge and experience. We are so happy to have found them.

If your situation is "typical", then perhaps your experience will be different and this will be a…read morefine provider of services. The testing itself, once you get it, appears to be done well, with competent and friendly doctors and the suggestions that result can be helpful. However, if you have any kind of unique situation, either in the symptomatology of your child, or if the parents disagree about the causes or presentation of the issues present, their approach and systems here are utterly incapable, by design, to handle that. They struggled to handle our bespoke situation and the outcomes of that were harmful for my child. These issues were also frustrating, caused extra costs, and ultimately required external intervention to get the very basic testing required for things beyond the academic testing which was all they initially sought to do. I wish to also second the review that found their billing practices questionable. I strongly disliked dealing with this organization and found the outcomes sub-optimal, more expensive with insurance coverage than simply going to an out-of-network provider would have been and required immense efforts to get issues resolved, some of which never were and that led to further conflict and harm for my child. It felt like my observations or issues were either ignored or disregarded. I regret using this organization.

Update: well they were so good for their own part, I can ignore the referral to a less-stellar…read moreservice provider, and figured in retrospect to change these guys to 5 stars. They deserve it.