Fulbright Montessori Academy - Lake Forest, California

Jennifer Kim

Our family has deeply valued our experience at Fulbright over the past three years, appreciating the dedication of its staff, teachers, and administration. However, following Endeavor's acquisition and the departure of the longtime director, Ms. Julie, we have observed a significant decline in the school's atmosphere. The transition has been poorly managed, resulting in the departure of more than half of the students and staff, with further departures likely. The personal warmth and care that once characterized Fulbright have been replaced by impersonal communication, seemingly driven by corporate priorities such as increasing classroom sizes and maximizing enrollment. We advise prospective parents to exercise caution, as the school is undergoing substantial changes and hiring new staff due to the current management challenges. Regrettably, we have decided not to continue our children's education at Fulbright.

Sources

Leo

Fulbright was a wonderful place until purchased by Endeavor schools. Their push for changes and treatment of the staff led to the director and half a dozen teachers leaving in a span of a few months. All the positive past comments were due to the hard efforts of the past director and the environment she fostered with her teachers.

There are so many concerns that almost a hundred parents banded together to communicate concerns. The responses and engagement were lackluster. They are bleeding teachers. Parents (some who have spent almost a decade at Fulbright with their children) have begun pulling their children out or actively looking for different avenues for child care.

Can they turn this around?
I hope so. There are still some phenomenal teachers but they’ll all be gone if they are not treated with more respect and dignity.

Roy J

TL;DR - Endeavor is a cancer that consumed Fulbright Montessori.

This review is based on Fulbright post July 25, 2024. Our daughter attended Fulbright for over a year. It was the most popular school in the area and came highly recommended by most of our neighbors who either had kids go there in the past or still have kids going there. We're talking about kids that are about to be in their teens so the great reputation spans quite a ways back. A lot of this reputation hinged on Ms Julie's leadership of the school and her amazing team of teachers. Our personal experience was just the same, where we would swear by Fulbright to anybody that would listen and have some of the best memories and mementos from our daughter's time there.

All of this changed on July 25 when it was announced that Ms Julie had resigned, signed by a mysterious "Dr M" who introduced herself to the children as such as well (while we work very hard to highlight to our children what a Dr and the different level of trust Drs receive, this was confusing to the children - but that's a different story). However, as many parents were very familiar with her we all knew that she wouldn't have just left with no notice, and felt like something was awry. Any attempt to communicate with Endeavor as a group was shut down, and they kept sending us emails with a whole lot of words that said absolutely nothing. They still repeated the same template that someone in marketing must have handed them about "best quality" "care for your kids" all while addressing nobody's concerns.

As students unenrolled and teachers resigned Endeavor continued to send the same empty emails and refused to address anybody's concerns directly. They continued to place the blame on everything and everyone but themselves, and continued even went as far as claiming that they do not have insight into why students are unenrolling as not everybody has shared. Yet here we are, sharing, as we've tried to share with them on day 1 with an email to their entire leadership stating our reasons.

They have been dismissive and on several occasions rude to parents, and took what was once a wonderful home away from home for a children and turned it into a hellish dystopia of corporate greed (all in a matter of weeks mind you, somewhat impressive).

Their clear lack of transparency with the parents at such a critical point was a clear indicator of the type of transparency (or lack thereof) we would come to expect from them with regards to our children.

I would not recommend Fulbright (or any Endeavor school at this point based on our experience) to anybody.

Holly J

Sad to say Fulbright no longer has what made it great. It’s now owned by Endevor Schools. They have ruined our beloved school. Didn’t feel safe with how many random adults were coming in everyday after they ushered our lovely school director out. They turned a peaceful place into a sad stressful environment. I don’t trust any of the replacements or their standard procedures. ?

Anthony Bausa

My 4 year old daughter has attended Fulbright Montessori since March of 2023 and as of August 2024 due current state of affairs we have pulled her from this school. As many other parents have explained - this school was amazing due to the the former director and amazing teachers who cared about our children. However due to the corporate mindset of Endevaur who have pushed out all the staff and created a negative and even unsafe environment for our children we could not even wait the end of the month to withdraw her.

In the past week, each day there was a new substitute teacher in the classrooms, little to no communication to the parents and even condescending and rude dialogue from the new management to current employees in front of children and parents. Pre-primary students were being mixed with older children in clasees that were not suitable for the younger kids (ie jobs for older students such as beads/rice and other choking hazards). Emails from the new administration were belittling and impersonal providing vague information such as upcoming changes to your children’s classroom.

When you reach out to the director you are met with ‘oh not your class it was others classes.. their teacher left so we are moving we don’t know where yet tho’ (But that’s only after she makes you address her as Doctor to feed her ego). Your children are not viewed as young kids who they want to educate and cultivate to grow into beautiful little humans but commodities to get you to attend the school to increase numbers and generate revenue. If you do not like the way the new regime does something (ie having their art work and crafts decorating the hallways for parents and student to see and be proud of) Endevaur will tell you what they told us. You can take your children elsewhere. That is what I and nearly 60 other families did all in a 2 week span of their changes.

M R

After being purchased by Endeavor, their leadership have made conditions hostile and unfavorable to both students and staff. After the resignation of Ms. Julie, the famed school Director, for degrading and border line unethical business practices, the school has seen more than 50% of their students unenroll and almost 1/2 of the teachers of tenured their resignation. The proposed new Director has unfavorable reputation due to entitled/arrogant comments in her home neighborhood. Be extremely weary of Endeavour leadership, they do not have your child's best interest at heart- they are a numbers only/investment centered conglomerate

Jan Wang

My son has been attending Fulbright for close to a year. We have experienced nothing but positive feedback from this school. The staff are friendly and the teachers are caring. Everyday, my son tells me he wants to go to school because he loves his teacher and have so much fun there with his friends. One main reason I chose this school is because they have a great security system. Each parent gets a key card to scan to open the front door of the school. You also need to do a fingerprint scanning during pick up and drop off of your kid. On top of all these, they also were one of the few schools near by that offered affordable tuition. Overall, we are very happy with Fulbright Montessori.

Catherine Jin

My son attended Fulbright Montessori for 3 years. The school and its excellent teachers laid out a good foundation in his early education for him to thrive in his later education in elementary school. Now my daughter is attending Fulbright. She improved a lot in the school academically and became more mature. I am very happy with her progress. I would recommend this school for its well management, knowledgeable and responsible teachers, friendly staff and safe environment.