✅ Green Names its teaching staff, with credentials
Elite Minds publishes a full staff roster with bios — every guide and assistant named, with training and degrees. That is better disclosure than most schools in this directory. Read the credentials as well as the names, though: by our count only about three of the staff hold or are completing a formal Montessori credential. Our rating measures disclosure, not depth.
Snapshot
Columbia Waterfront District
A narrow strip between Cobble Hill and the harbour, cut off from the brownstone belt by the BQE. Quiet, low-rise and walkable, with Mother Cabrini Park a block away. Different sources place the school in Red Hook, Carroll Gardens or Columbia Waterfront — it is genuinely on the seam.
Programs
One small campus running four classrooms — Buttercups (12–18 months), Daisies, Lillies and Daffodils — with a two-to-three-hour uninterrupted work cycle. Alongside the Montessori materials the school runs music, a weekly artist study, yoga, gardening and farm-to-table cooking, and a daily mindfulness practice. Outdoor time is at Mother Cabrini Park.
Languages are described inconsistently: the site’s own copy lists English, Spanish and Mandarin, while its page description says “bilingual Spanish immersion”. Worth asking on a tour which languages are actually spoken in your child’s room, and by whom.
A summer camp runs 7 July – 12 August, $750 (to 2:30pm) or $825 (to 5pm), two-week minimum.
Tuition
The school does publish its 2026–27 rates — but as screenshot images, so the figures are not selectable, searchable or readable by a screen reader. We don’t reproduce numbers we can’t reliably read, so ask for them in writing.
The structure is clear enough: a 10-month year (September–June) by default, with an opt-in 12-month option for infants aged 3–23 months; monthly instalments; discounts for siblings and for annual or half-yearly payment; payment by brightwheel or cheque. Early drop-off from 8am is $30. For scale, the New York Post reported in April 2026 that infant tuition here “can top $32,000” a year — a press figure, not one we have confirmed against the school’s own schedule.
Leadership & staff
Founder and Executive Director Laurie Torres holds a BBA from Pace, completed Montessori leadership training at Montessori Teachers College in April 2025, and is pursuing an M.S.Ed. at Brooklyn College. Named alongside her: a Director of Operations, two Education Directors — one a New York State certified teacher, one an infant/toddler guide — a guide trained through the West Side Montessori teacher education programme, a Montessori accelerated assistant, and a further guide in training at West Side Montessori, plus around ten more staff with bios.
That is a genuinely full roster, and it is why this school rates GREEN. The honest caveat: only about three of those people hold or are completing a formal Montessori credential. For a school of this size that is not unusual, but it is worth weighing against the “trained teachers in every classroom” language in its AMS claim.
What parents say
There is almost nothing to go on, and we would rather say that than pad it. Across Google, Yelp, Winnie, Nextdoor and Mommy Poppins the school has listings but zero reviews. It is not indexed on Niche, GreatSchools, PrivateSchoolReview or Care.com at all.
The only genuine parent commentary anywhere is five entries on Park Slope Parents, all positive, and all dated between January 2020 and November 2023 — the newest is nearly three years old, so we treat all of it as historical. Parents described a warm, small, community-centred school, praised the dual-language teaching, and singled out tuition as more reasonable than other Montessori options nearby. One noted the school is an easy walk despite sitting the far side of the BQE. A 2022 camp review described children spending most of the day outdoors and coming home “happy and filthy — just as summer camp should be.”
Two cautions on that sample. Five reviews on one platform is far too thin to characterise a school, and Park Slope Parents states that it moderates and may decline to publish reviews — positive or negative. So the absence of criticism there is not evidence that none exists. We found no critical or mixed review anywhere, and no reviews at all from 2024 onward.
Ignore the three recommendations on Alignable: that is a business-networking site and the recommenders are a consulting firm and an accountant, not families.
Heard around town
The community garden dispute — the one story that generated real coverage. In April 2026 the New York Post reported that the school had lost access to the Urban Meadow, a GreenThumb-licensed community garden it had used for around seven years, after the locks were changed without warning in about July 2025. The school’s director said the schools involved had been treated like “second-class citizens.” A garden board member cited a liability determination and children trampling crop beds, and later floated a donation in exchange for access parameters; the city’s Parks Department said it had contacted the garden group, because tying donations to access is not permitted.
NY Post, 12 April 2026The other side of it. Hell Gate covered the same dispute in May 2026 and framed it as a fight in which nobody wins: the garden coordinators said they had closed general access in order to comply better with city policy, on top of everything else involved in stewarding a small piece of public green space. Worth reading both if this matters to you — it is a genuine neighbour disagreement, not a scandal. A third local outlet, the Court Street Journal, also picked it up.
Hell Gate, 1 May 2026 · Court Street Journal, 17 April 2026One parent post, August 2025. A family advertising their toddler’s place on Reddit said the education had been excellent, particularly for two-year-olds, and that they were leaving only because their child had won a free 3-K seat. Notable operationally: they mentioned they could not exit their contract unless they found a replacement family. Worth asking about withdrawal terms.
r/nycparents, 22 August 2025Otherwise: nothing. No discussion of this school on r/Brooklyn, r/carrollgardens, r/AskNYC, r/nyc, r/Montessori or six other borough subreddits; nothing in the Brooklyn Paper, Brooklyn Eagle or Red Hook Star-Revue; no independent parent-blog coverage. For a school of this size that is normal, not a red flag — but it does mean the garden story is doing a lot of the work above.
Swept 10 August 2026Stale marketing to be aware of. Two third-party listings still advertise “frequent visits to Urban Meadow Garden.” Per the coverage above, that access has been closed since roughly July 2025.
Checked 10 August 2026Admissions
Rolling admissions. As of August 2026 the school advertised places for 2025–26, summer camp 2026 and the 2026–27 school year. Ask specifically about: the languages actually spoken in your child’s classroom; which staff hold Montessori credentials; the withdrawal and contract terms; and the school’s current AMS status, given the check above.