I hate to say this about a school that is a part of my church but I have been repeatedly underwhelmed and frustrated by MDUMCs MDO programs. After looking around at schools, meeting staff, teachers, looking at the curriculum offered and observing school in action I decided to put Emily in the program at Christ Memorial Lutheran next year and I am so glad I did. Emily is no longer a baby that just needs to be watched while I run errands, I think the quality of the school is important now especially considering it is expensive and Im not working! So, before I get into this I know I might sound like a crazy mom but I dont care. These programs cost too much money and Emilys development is too important for me to shrug it off. We signed Emily up for the summer program at MDUMC because the days worked out for us and Christ Memorial doesnt have a summer program for her age. Tallowood has a summer program but it is only a few days the whole summer so I decided to pass. I now regret it because at least I know it is a good program. I was the first to register for summer at MDUMC. I talked to the staff, found out info about what they were going to do, class size, age etc. and then decided to pay the one time lump sum payment. Figured summer school doesnt have to be perfect, just something to hold over until school year starts. Well, we arrive today and go to the class room where she was assigned. I look around and it was filled with crying babies with pacifiers. None of the kids were talking or playing they were just all crying and were clearly all much younger. I asked the teacher if there had been a mistake. She said she was just the teacher and has a list to follow and Emily is on it, and that I needed to talk to office. I asked her how old the kids were in the class and she said 18-23 months. I know that Emily just turned 2 a few months ago, but most of the babies in there looked much closer to 18 months and the difference between a one year old and a two year old is huge. I went to the office and waited on the coordinator. She informed me that the 2-3 year old class had more kids and Emily was the youngest in that age group so they put Emily in the younger class. The problem is that they never had the curtesy to call me and let me know prior to arrival. The coordinator let me put Emily in the appropriate classroom today and is going to look into whether she can continue to do so for the remainder of the summer. If not, she said Emily could either be in the room with the 1 year olds or I could take a refund. Of course, Im going to look around for something else regardless. My mom was a MDO director for many years at a few different schools and my moms word for this is shoddy. And I know that one bad experience doesnt always speak for the whole, but apprently several other moms have been unhappy with the MDUMC school as well. I guess a program can become too complacent and start to lose its edge once it has sufficient numbers. I am sure that she would not be harmed or set back by spending the summer in the one year old class, but she would not gain enough to make the cost of the program worth it. They should have let me know the situation before hand, especially since I had been told she would be in the 2-3 year old class when I cut them my check!!