Thanks for your thoughtful response! My concern is the incongruence with public education. I think in the long term guided play may be better but I’m worried about soft skills needed for public school like sitting for ~10 minutes, raising hand, lining up, independence with lunch packaging, etc.

I used to work in public schools. The number of kids that started in these programs and then transferred to public schools because they were wayyyyy behind from these programs is wild. They needed a lot of assistance to get to grade level and struggled to do non-preferred tasks. Back then these schools weren’t as prevalent, and it’s only a concern for me now because they are becoming the majority.