Field Notes Columbus Montessori Officially Abandoned Kansas City May Combine Programs Ohio School Remembers Student Who Died Public Montessori in Spring Conferences Nienhuis's Stoll Opens Materials Company Jakson, TN, Montessori Meets Desegregation Goals Charter approved in Palm Beach Gardens , FL Grad Student Research Discussion List Created Columbus Montessori Officially Abandoned The principal of Brentnell Montessori, the only public Montessori program in the Columbus, OH, school system, is responding favorably to a task force report recommending that the program be discontinued. Columbus' Innovative Schools Task Force delivered a broad set of recommendations in early February after nine months of studying alternatives to better market the 61,000-student system. The report noted that the Montessori model is not fully implemented at the 20-year-old Brentnell program,, and, for five years, the school has not met standards for test score improvement. "It makes sense," principal Deborah Copeland said in an interview, pointing to the demands created by federal No Child Left Behind legislation. "Maria Montessori's calls for letting children develop at their own pace. When you are being held accountable as we are, your orientation to instruction is very different." Copeland, who has no Montessori training, noted that most of the school's teachers also had none. "This is my first year here, she said. "I have not focused on the Montessori at all. I think the staff is comfortable with that." Copeland has focused her school on the demands of NCLB and state testing. "No Child Left Behind has changed the way we do business," she said. "It is increasing pressure on us to meet standards. It certainly focuses our work. We have a very rigorous testing program, which holds us accountable for children mastering state standards." Brentnell, she said, had no choice but to teach the district-adopted standards curriculum. "That's difficult to do using the Montessori philosophy," she said. "In that situation, " she continued, "we have to be honest with the public about what we are doing. Parents who choose our program have the expectation that their children are going to be taught using Montessori principles. We are no longer Montessori. We attempted to marry Montessori principles to our district curriculum. It's not a good fit. "It is difficult and frustrating for our teachers to marry those principles with state standards. They have spent a lot of time and energy that could have been spent in more productive ways." In attempting to meet math standards, the school had adopted a packaged curriculum that came with welcome resources. "It's not something that we do not want," Copeland said. "We had a need for direct instruction." Noting that Ohio's accountability system may be more rigorous than that in other states, Copeland suggested that "anyone who wishes to continue with a Montessori instructional focus should be thoughtful in how they align those instructional strategies with whatever standards or learning objectives their state has outlined." Copeland expects no effort from parents to save the program. "At one time," she said, "the school had an active parent group. Now our parents are primarily concerned that their children master the state standards. If they believe that we can do it through Montessori, fine. If not, fine. Their primary concern is that their children reach the state standards." Kansas City May Combine Programs Officials in the Kansas City, MO, school district are considering a recommendation to consolidate the district's three Montessori programs in a single campus. Facing a $20 million budget shortfall, the district has announced a plan to move the programs at Faxon and Border Star schools to a shared campus with Holliday Montessori in the southeast portion of the city. "We're not closing any schools," said district spokesman Ed Birch. "We're consolidating into one campus. We are not closing the program." All three Montessori programs are operating at far below their building's enrollment capacity. A consolidation would probably limit the number of seats available for expansion, but not reduce the current enrollment. Community meetings were anticipated to evaluate community reaction to the plan. Ohio School Remembers Student Who Died The staff and families at Nightingale Montessori School in Springfield, OH, are channeling their sadness over the death of a young Nightingale student into an effort to extend Montessori opportunities to more local children. Samantha Welsh, 10, was killed in an accident in her family's stable on Dec. 8. She had started attending Nightingale when she was four and had demonstrated great gifts for learning, friendship, and leadership in those years, says Nancy Schwab, head of the Nightingale school. "She epitomized so much of what we think Montessori is about." In the weeks following Samantha's death, the outpouring of emotion from the school community and Springfield kept growing and searching for appropriate ways to commemorate her life. That interest started spreading across the country as stories about Samantha's life went up on the Web and circulated through military communities (her parents are both members of the Air National Guard). In January, Welsh's parents agreed to help direct some of that interest towards a new campaign to help Nightingale provide affordable Montessori learning to more children. One of the goals of the Samantha Welsh Memorial Fund will be to acquire a new larger school building, which can serve more than Nightingale's current 100 students. But donors can also earmark their gifts for an organizing effort to make Ohio's charter school rules more accommodating to Montessori curriculums, or to help Nightingale develop a Montessori teacher training program with a nearby college. Schwab said Samantha's parents, teachers and friends agreed that "Montessori had a role in helping Samantha develop in the way she did, and we hope through this fund to make that possible for more children." Nightingale opened in 1978 in a former convent in Springfield, a town of 65,000 residents in western Ohio. INFO: (937) 324-0336 -Mark Anderson Public Montessori in Spring Conferences The American Montessori Society has not always been able to keep to its stated commitment of offering a public school track at its annual conferences, but according to the program for the March 31-April 3 event in Chicago, there will be at least four sessions with a public school emphasis: . Public School Forum-an open forum led by Rose Dorer, curriculum coordinator at J. J. Hill School in St. Paul. . Montessori in the Public Schools: Challenges & Successes-led by Russ Dunn-Foster, a teacher at Montessori Elementary in Owatonna, MN. . Guiding & Being Guided by Middle School Children-led by Linda Massey, former Montessori coordinator and currently a specialist in Prince George's County, MD schools. . Getting it Together in the Public Early Childhood Classroom-led by Lisa Steel, who teaches in the 3-6 classroom at Northboro Montessori Magnet in West Palm Beach, FL. The National Center for Montessori Education conference, April 8-10 in San Diego, does not offer any workshops directed uniquely toward public school Montessori educators, but does have a three-hour session on Special Education offered by Norman Lorenz, who has been a leader in creating Montessori charter schools. Nienhuis's Stoll Opens Materials Company Don Stoll, who for 22 years has created Nienhuis USA's attractive graphics, has started his own company to produce materials for Montessori classrooms. Stoll stresses that the development is a friendly one-he's still working part time for Nienhuis and the company is marketing his products. His company, Sidedoor Publishing LLC, located in Mountain View, CA and has introduced three sets of printed products for beginning readers based on food. Each set consists of a spiral-bound reading booklet along with cards for matching and labeling exercises. They are among "most children's more important centers of interest, they should be especially effective in classrooms as well as home environments," Stoll said. The first set introduces 21 foods (vegetables and fruits) with outside and inside full-color photographs. Set 2 introduces the adjective-noun concepts, i.e., green bean, red pepper, etc. Set 3 uses the same food theme to offer beginning counting experiences, Each item is packaged in a sturdy hinged plastic box for compact storage and organization. They stand up to fit on a bookshelf or stack. INFO: Nienhuis, 1-800-942-8697, www.nienhuis.com or Sidedoor Publishing, www.pictureword-books.com Jakson, TN, Montessori Meets Desegregation Goals Parkview Montessori Magnet School in Jackson was noted as one of the city's few racially balanced elementary schools. At the end of 2004, it enrolled 138 black students and 136 white students. The school, located in one of the poorer areas of the city, has been able achieve the balance by attracting students and families from the nearby neighborhood as well as from throughout the city. "That was a goal and we think we have been able to do that because we have a quality program," said school principal, Virginia Stackens-Crump. "You have to attract from beyond this community and we have been able o do that." There is a waiting list to get into the school and despite some guaranteed neighborhood openings, the school system has had to tell some neighborhood parents that their children may not get to come to the school. "We jut had more of an interest from those parents who live in the neighborhood," said Stackens-Crump. "Many of them are choosing convenience rather then program." "We want to create an authentic Montessori," Stackens-Crump added. "Our program is attracting people from all walks of life. We are proud of that." Charter approved in Palm Beach Gardens , FL The Palm Beach County, FL, School Board approved a new Montessori charter with a free two-year lease at the Howell L. Watkins Media Center. Joseph Orr, a former district administrator, will run the program. Grad Student Research Discussion List Created Graduate students and university-based researchers studying Montessori education have a resource for sharing information and questions. Anna Perry, administrator of the Montessori Education Centers Associated, director of Seton Montessori School in Clarendon Hills, IL , and doctoral student at the Ericksen Institute, created a listserv for those doing research. According to Perry, to keep discussions informed and focused, the list will be limited to persons: . Actively involved in research (i.e. university professor, research institute member, graduate student) AND . Interested in providing feedback to proposed or ongoing (i.e. not yet completed) research. INFO: A...@MontessoriECA.org

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