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I just finished going through this with my DD. We kept her for Kinder in Montessori, and she just finished her 1st grade year in public school this past year. Staying for Kinder was an easy decision for me. We love the school and wanted her to finish out the 3 year program. Also, she only makes the cutoff date by 3 days, so giving her an extra year to "marinate" in the Montessori environment seemed like a good idea. I was concerned about the transition to public, but not too much. In reality, the transition was not too bad. She did great, and the way her 1st grade was taught was kind of reminiscent of Montessori. A lot of "stations" to work at and rotate through. The biggest transition was for me. A lot of parents already knew each other from Kinder and I was a little late to the game. Our public school is huge and there were so many "processes" for me to learn. But over all, we did great. DD made lots of new friends and so did I. I don't think it will be a bad choice at all to do that. The only thing I don't know is, whether it made a big difference at all to have done it this way. I'm sure she would have done fine at public Kinder anyway, you know, and I could have saved some $$ Good luck!
ETA: After thinking about it more, I think the extra Kinder year was really good for my DD. She was having a lot of tantrums and behavior problems at home that year, and I remember now how grateful I was that I wasn't having to deal with that and a more "rigid" environment at school.

Fortunately, where we live in Asia, preschool is considered from 3-5 years old which includes what Americans call Kindergarten. My oldest just graduated from his Montessori school. He will start 1st grade in a month at a new school who will also have kids coming from that school's kinder class. Personally, I like the idea of having them finish the full three years. My son went to a bilingual school (English/Chinese) but mostly taught in Chinese. But he loves English so he made lots of efforts learning with my guidance as well. His English is the best in his class and he is the only child who can read time. He can tell you the pronunciation of the Chinese word (bo po mo fo for those who are Taiwanese) if you ask him. He can also do addition and multiplication. I have to say he is weak in subtraction; but, overall, he will be more advanced in both English and Chinese when he enters 1st grade because he went to Montessori school here. My husband thinks it sucks he has to start over with English (ABCs) and Chinese (bo po mo fo), but they supposedly will challenge kids who are more advanced as well. Their English class is split into beginner and advanced so at least he, hopefully, won't be completely starting from the ABCs.

IMO, I think it also depends on your child and how he/she learns. My son LOVES to learn. In his spare time before school he will voluntarily sit at his little table and practice writing (either in Chinese or English). Tonight, he happily agreed to doing some math after dinner. Seriously, I could not have been happier. Now, my youngest... he is the total opposite. But I do wonder if it's because of the Montessori style of learning?? He really has grown up a lot in his last year and has become more reasonable as well. Such a 180 from when we moved here two years ago.

My daughter is just over a year old, but right now we are leaning towards putting her into the local Montessori program for 2 years or preschool and 1 year of kindergarten. I prefer this to the public kindergarten programs, which were recently increased to all-day because they were trying to cram too much into the day.

I couldn't vote - we're planning on the full 3 years of Montessori and starting public school at Kindergarten (he's an on-the-cusp fall birthday, so that would be Kinder at age 6). Although, if his Montessori teacher says she thinks he's ready for 1st and would be bored with K, we'd have him transition into 1st with no worries.

I would transition 1st grade. Kindergarten is 1/2 day here so we will be sending LOs to private kindergarten.