By Peter Downs
Filed Tuesday, February 7 at 10:40 PM
By Susan Turk and Peter Downs
February 6, 2006 -- A group of parents gathered at Washington Montessori
on Friday morning to express their continued
dissatisfaction with the school. Parent Delisa
Taylor, who has had children in the Montessori magnet
schools for 10 years, said, "It's about us taking back
our kids' education."
Taylor had a long list of concerns. The new principal, Mrs. Mary Arbini,
is not Montessori certified; there is a problem with
rodents in the Euclid building and the administration
won't call professional exterminators, so food cannot be
left out in the cafeteria at lunch time.
Discipline problems have increased since Arbini came to the school. She
is suspending pre-schoolers and kindergartners. "That
doesn't make sense", Taylor said. "The Montessori
curriculum is self-disciplining. They are not using
the Montessori curriculum. They are only using the
Montessori name."
Arbini also fired the school secretary without any explanation to
parents or staff and she has not properly introduced
herself to parents, Taylor said. She keeps all supplies
locked up, when she is not in the building, teachers
cannot access supplies.
Taylor said a group of parents went downtown to talk to
Superintendent Creg Williams and asked him to
research the Montessori method so that he would
understand it. He visited the school in October, but he did not talk
to the kids or the teachers.
Taylor's comments mirror those of Montessori parents
who attended the Parent Assembly meeting in January.
They said that a group of parents met with Dr.
Williams at the school on November 30. They were emphatic that
nothing has really changed since then to correct the
problems they told him about.
Parents continue to insist that Montessori teaching is simply not taking
place. These parents were talking about pulling their
children from the school. They said they chose
Montessori because in the past, the teachers and the principal were
trained in Montessori and the Montessori curriculum was actually used in classrooms.
Parents say Open Court has displaced the Montessori approach and there has been no Montessori training in the school since 2003.
They say it has been replaced by Open Court. Open Court and the
Clear curriculum are for single grades, while the Montessori approach is to have three grades in a class. These parents expressed the desire to drop Open Court and Clear as incompatible with Montessori.
The parents at the Parent Assembly meeting said that teaching assistants are a key part of the Montessori method, because so much of the method relies on hands-on and individual or small group activities. The teaching assistants were swept out of the school this year, however, as Open Court became more entrenched.
Parents also complained that the school now lacks a speech teacher, a computer lab teacher, and a Montessori certified administrative assistant.
Parents also said they feel unwelcome and uncomfortable at school. They said Arbini's response to their concerns has been: "Why don't you send your children to private school?"
1 Comments:
Wow!
What a bold and out front article.
I've been watching this Montessori school since it began in the first wave of magnet schools, decades ago.
I am a career Montessorian who believes in the public schools. It has my heart in two places. Our public schools carry and nurture the spirit of our democracy. We need them and yet I usually work in the private sector.
I've only had one brief experience working in a Montessori public school. It's unlikely that I'll ever try it again. Here’s what happened. I was horrified to discover the amount of time that was required to be spent on testing, lining up, attending meetings, and having my students pulled for enrichment. There was no time to implement the Montessori method. Montessori is a complete package with a delicate dynamic balance. It's like a bubble. Remove any portion, no matter how small, of the surface, and the whole thing bursts. Open Court is just the tip of the iceberg that sinks our public Montessori programs.
The natural flow of a Montessori room allows for from six to eight lessons to be given in a day. In the public school I was lucky to give eight in a week. I couldn't morally continue to participate in what I considered fraud.
I'm not sure, however, that we serve the children or promote the implementation of real Montessori by attacking Mrs. Arbini. She's just another cog in the machinery. You're right to point out that she has no Montessori training that is a real issue. But that's a criticism that's been directed at administrator's of this school time and time again. I’ve known and spoken with a few of them.
The root of the problem lies further up the chain of command. Is there anyone on the school board or in the superintendent’s office who has training? I doubt it. Is there anyone with training that they consult with? I doubt it. If there was, they wouldn't have appointed a principal that didn't have the prerequisite skills.
You're right. They are just using the name. That's the way the school board has always done it. Let’s put the onus where it belongs.
Saturday, February 18, 2006 5:08:27 PM
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