SPRINGDALE -- A new public Montessori charter school set to open in Springdale in August already has received applications equal to half of its enrollment for next school year.
The application deadline for Ozark Montessori Academy is April 8, and the school plans to select students for 120 spots in kindergarten through sixth grade on April 15, said Executive Director Christi Silano. The school has received at least 65 applications, she said.
Silano organized an informational meeting Tuesday that drew about 40 parents. Similar meetings are planned for Feb. 10 and March 10 in The Jones Center Chapel.
An anonymous donor is purchasing property at 301 S. Holcomb St. in Springdale and plans to pay $5 million to renovate a 45,000-square-foot space for the school, Silano said. The owner will lease the property to the school.
The academy will start with kindergarten through sixth grade, but plans to add seventh and eighth grades and increase to having 280 children, Silano said.
"This has been a wonderful adventure," Silano said. "The way the community has responded has energized me."
Private Montessori schools operate across the state, but Ozark Montessori Academy is one of the first two public Montessori schools to receive state approval. The other, Rockbridge Montessori in Little Rock, also expects to open in August.
Both schools' charters were approved by the state Charter Authorizing Panel and state Board of Education.
Montessori education was developed in the early 1900s in Rome by the late Italian physician and educator Maria Montessori. American Montessori schools opened in different parts of the country between 1910 and 1920, but the early movement quickly burned out, according to a history written by Keith Whitescarver, a Montessori researcher who is now director and co-founder of the National Center for Montessori in the Public Sector.
The model gained renewed interest in the United States in the 1960s, and the first public Montessori school opened in Cinncinnati, Ohio, in 1973, Whitescarver said. The first Montessori charter school was established in 1994 in Minnesota. The center estimates that nearly 450 public Montessori school programs existed in the United States in 2014.
Montessori schools have attracted families from all economic backgrounds looking for an alternative to traditional public schooling, Whitescarver said.
"They have a profound respect for the child," he said.
The schools provide calm, clean and plain classrooms that mix children of different ages, Whitescarver said. The classrooms provide a variety of material, such as beads used for math, for children to pick up and explore. Teachers observe children and act as a guide in the learning process.
Springdale mother Xiaoyan Yang had a friend who taught in a Montessori school in St. Paul, Minn., and liked the concept but couldn't afford the cost of the private Montessori school there. Yang's family moved to Northwest Arkansas several months ago.
She attended an informational meeting about the new Ozark Montessori Academy, which is state-funded, on Tuesday, and submitted an application for her kindergarten son who will be in first grade in the fall. Her 3-year-old daughter already attends the academy's Montessori preschool, which opened a year ago at The Jones Center, an enrolls 35 children from 18 months to 5 years old.
"I want my child to have a new experience," Yang said. "I like it because it gives children more choice. You can choose what you want to do."
Another Springdale mother, Ashley Rupp, applied for a spot for her 5-year-old son, who will be in kindergarten in the fall. Rupp believes her son will receive individual attention from his teacher in a smaller classroom environment. She also thinks the focus on hands-on learning will benefit her active child.
"I want him to be in a school where he's happy," Rupp said. "If he can do things hands-on, moving and doing things, he does great."
For Bill Simmons, president of Rockbridge Montessori in Little Rock, interest in establishing a public Montessori school grew from his training in a faith-based program for children in the Episcopal church that applies Montessori methods.
"It's all about engaging the children," he said. "The biggest part of it is teaching the children to learn and teach themselves."
Rockbridge Montessori has received about 30 applications for next school year, Simmons said. The school will open for 120 children in kindergarten through sixth grade, then will grow to a kindergarten through eighth-grade campus with up to 325 students.
"It's going to open up a lot of different avenues and possibilities for the children of Arkansas," Simmons said. "It's interesting that two public Montessori schools were authorized the same year."
Silano spent 17 years teaching teenagers and grew concerned that her students lost an interest in learning. Silano worked to reignite a spark for learning in her students, she said.
While doing research for her doctorate in curriculum and instruction from the University of Arkansas, Silano learned the best approach for preventing dropouts is hands-on, direct learning that provides choices for students and is meaningful and relevant to their lives, she said. She sought an educational model to support what she learned from her research and discovered Montessori, which offered a well-established curriculum.
Brenda Bernet can be reached by email at [email protected].
NW News on 01/19/2015