• Cincinnati Neighborhood Montessori Advances
• Hallenberg to Offer Summer 2006 Seminar
• Public Montessori Web Network in Texas
• Montessori-linked Architect to Lead Wright School
• Edu Aids Sues Montessori Outlet
• Despite Charter Defeat, Juneau Option Remains
• Chicago Opens 2nd Montessori Magnet

Cincinnati Neighborhood Montessori Advances

A neighborhood-based planning group organized by the Cincinnati Public Schools is pushing to move forward the opening of the city's first neighborhood public Montessori school.

The district already offers four elementary Montessori magnets, but the efforts of the group in the city's Mt. Pleasant neighborhood would create the district's first neighborhood Montessori school.

Darlene Kamine, a former juvenile court magistrate and Children's Defense Fund official, is leading the city-wide community process that involves a broad-based group of citizens in facilities planning. Using several subcommittees and outside consultants, neighborhood committees map assets, do needs assessments and eventually inform rebuilding or rehabilitation of more than 60 public schools in the city. She said about 17 are well along in the planning process and the Pleasant Ridge neighborhood was the only group to use a curricular option as a key part of its plan.

"We're going to develop all our schools as community learning centers" she said. "We are working to put the public back in public education."

The effort has brought a variety of community resources, including foundations, universities, health care providers and arts organizations, into the process of rethinking school buildings.

The decision of the Pleasant Ridge neighborhood group, Kamine said, assumes that a new Montessori school would build community and bring families back to public schools.

"Real estate people are saying that property values have already increased because of school," Kamine said. "It's hard to get into the Montessori magnets. Now, if you own a home in the area, that's your school."

The new building, which will serve up to 550 p-6 students, is scheduled to be ready in fall 2007.

"There is a lot of momentum to start in an interim space in September of 2006," she said. One option would be a local church.

"Parents of preschoolers are driving this," she said. "They have children who will start school next fall."

The neighborhoods that will feed into the new school should provide for a diverse student body, Kamine said.

"Montessori was a vehicle," Kamine said. "It provided enough of a 'safe ground' to attract the new middle-class people to a neighborhood school."

Hallenberg to Offer Summer 2006 Seminar

Respected elementary Montessori educator Harvey Hallenberg has announced a series of week-long seminars for June 2006.

Hallenberg's announcement states that the seminars will be for teachers seeking to achieve "master teacher" status and will include material on physical science, earth science, algebra, geometry, and trigonometry.

INFO: Claremont Center for Advanced Montessori Studies, 2450 NW 5th Av., Boca Raton, FL 33431, (561) 394-7674.

Public Montessori Web Network in Texas

Teachers at the Lake Waco Montessori Magnet in Waco, Texas, are setting up a website for public Montessori educators in Texas.

The purpose, according to Robin McDurham, an organizer of the effort, is to provide an opportunity to share best practices consistent with Texas state requirements. Organizers see the site as a model other states could use.

"We can certainly see the value it would add to our classroom, campus and statewide efforts to offer the most successful Montessori programs possible," McDurham said.

Interested Texas public Montessori teachers can begin by filling our a four-question questionnaire at www.txpublicmontessori.org.

Another chance to get on board will be at the American Montessori Society National Conference in Houston in late March where the organizers will present a session on public Montessori networking and advocacy.

INFO: (254)752-5951 or lwandless@wacoisd.org.

Montessori-linked Architect to Lead Wright School

A young architect who has worked closely with Montessori educators on school design has been named to head the troubled Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture in Scottsdale, AZ.

Victor Sidy, a New York architect and graduate of the school, was recently appointed to fill the position of dean, which has been vacant for more than a year.

In April 2004, Dean John Wyatt resigned to protest the firing of the head of the foundation that runs the school. Subsequently, most of the faculty left and school enrollment fell from 22 to 5.

For the past decade, Sidy worked with David Kahn, executive director of the North American Montessori Teachers Association, on Montessori-friendly architecture. He contributed to The Whole School Montessori Handbook, a book Kahn edited.

Kahn and Sidy also created a seminar that explored how Wright's and Montessori's followers could innovate within their leaders' frameworks.

Edu Aids Sues Montessori Outlet

Editor's Note: The parties arrived at an out-of-court settlement in 2006 that prohibits them from commenting on the suit.

The owners of Edu Aids, an importer of Chinese-made Montessori materials, have filed suit against a former contractor whom they allege used their information to set up a competing company, Montessori Outlet.

Kavan & Ruth Moonesinghe of Pasadena, CA-based Edu Aids, filed suit in California district court in August against Jason Tau.

The suit alleges that Tau used information they provided to him as their representative in China to start his own company.

Tau's attorney, Kari Keidser, said Tau denied any wrongdoing and that she intended to file a cross-complaint.

Montessori Outlet's website reports that Bert Nienhuis, the head of Netherlands-based Neinhuis Montessori before it was purchased by a French firm a decade ago, became "our company's Corporate Advisor and Director on May 1, 2005."

Despite Charter Defeat, Juneau Option Remains

The Juneau, AK, Montessori program continues to be a moving target.

When a group won approval from the Juneau school board in April to start Montessori Borealis Charter School, it appeared Montessori classrooms would have some independence from the district. The Alaska Board of Education, however, rejected the charter application in June, and the district quickly responded by finding a place for the program, although it will require moving the programs.

The district will offer its three Montessori elementary classrooms at Glacier Valley Elementary and two middle school classrooms at Mendenhall River Community School.

Last year the district offered two Montessori elementary classrooms at Harborview Elementary and one at Glacier Valley.

Chicago Opens 2nd Montessori Magnet

The second Montessori program funded through an $8.9 million federal magnet grant to the Chicago Public Schools opens this fall at Suder School. The first program opened at Drummond School last year.

The decision to reopen Suder School as a Montessori program as part of the district's Renaissance 2010 reform plan drew opposition from some members of a citizen's advisory group that reportedly had rejected the plan last winter. In May the group was informed the school would not reopen, but the district reversed that decision. The group anticipated greater say in the reuse of the building, but eventually accepted the decision.

CPS spokesman Peter Cunningham said the district didn't want to lose the grant money. "The bottom line is we're opening a great school here."

"We're excited about this," said Sandy Rodriguez of the district's Communications Dept. "We are constantly looking for new options for our families and the Montessori approach is widely respected."