By Rebecca J. Barnabi
For Augusta Free Press
FISHERSVILLE — Founded in Staunton 40 years in the past, the Staunton Montessori School celebrated a milestone on Friday.
“The intent was to bring Montessori to the Shenandoah Valley,” stated Debra Dance Schmid, who started her first tutorial yr as head of the faculty this yr.
According to Schmid, the faculty started in Staunton, and stored the Queen City in its identify by means of a transfer to Verona after which after shifting to Fishersville 12 years in the past.
On Friday, Schmid stated the faculty will announce at its celebration the begin of the Scottie Lu Parker Brandt Founders Fund, named after the faculty’s founder with the mission to create an endowment for the faculty and scholarship alternatives for college kids.
“That will just be something that will continue to raise money for scholarships,” Schmid stated.
The faculty was based to hold on the instructional philosophy of Maria Montessori, an Italian doctor and educator born in 1870 who at first dreamed of being an engineer. Her philosophy included an academic setting for college kids in completely different grades.
The faculty started as a one-classroom instructional facility for main college students. Its adolescent program is pretty new.
“The social environment is a very important component of the classroom,” Schmid stated of the Montessori instructional mannequin.
Students are taught the significance of dignity, respect and neighborhood, in addition to self-dignity.
“The children are taught to discover themselves,” she stated of the faculty’s setting which inspires self-discovery and independence “so that they can grow at their own pace.”
Schmid stated that Brandt based the faculty, was the solely trainer and proprietor for a time, and “then to start that legacy and just see it continue to offer that premium education.”
In the subsequent 40 years, the faculty hopes to develop its adolescent program, which is tremendously wanted in the Valley instead program for grades 7 to 12.
“This is the perfect program that honors what the adolescent is,” Schmid stated, and acknowledges “they are our future.”
“And how they can impact their world as adults,” she stated.
Students in the program have alternatives to present again to the area people. For instance, some college students take part in fundraising with the United Way’s Greatest Needs Drive. Others personal their very own Etsy enterprise by means of the “Staunton Montessori Bottega.”
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