Health and Safety Protocols 2023-2024
Once again this year we are operating as a near “home school size” entity, with full on-site learning models.
“In spring of 2020 some Montessori schools formed a task force of administrators — the Pandemic Preparedness Committee who continue to closely monitor news, updates, and guidelines as may be helpful utilizing these principles in our discussions, decision making, and communication. For weekly up to date decisions and safety requirements current families may refer to our parent portal.
Safety | The safety, health, and well-being of our students, families, and faculty are always our top priority. As a school, we monitor and follow guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In-Person Learning | Interestingly, we have discovered that some curriculum areas may be adapted seamlessly to best accommodate healthy practices. For instance: in young children’s Montessori education children “walk around the circle or the line” developing balance, grace, peace and a meditative means for preparing the mind and spirit for meaningful activity. Using this original sensorial practice we can readily adapt to new traffic paths in order to better distance and diminish microbial saturation. Likewise, Ms. Williams has also figured slight additions and embellishments for the beautiful Montessori hand washing and food preparation exercises. Children will advance in their habits of adding quality practices for hygiene and therefore incorporate these into all their environments and in turn sharing good practices with others at home.
Attaining goals together As a Montessori school, we believe in tactile learning, multi-age classrooms, individualized instruction, and assessment through continuous observation knowing how vital these practices are for our youth. While we had some success with remote learning (distance learning) in the 2020 spring, our preference for our students, families, and faculty in person learning on campus. A great effort, school and family collaboration in concert with careful planning are all necessary to accomplish this in an optimal fashion and improving safe practices to be carried out everywhere.
Montessori Learning | Maintaining our commitment to Montessori values, no matter where we are learning, is of great importance to our community. As we develop strategies for safe and effective in-person learning, we look for sustainable models that are developmentally appropriate at each age level and support our families’ lives beyond school. We know that some solutions, such as A and B days for students to attend school, do not align with our approach to learning and will not work for us nor will large populations of children during this time.
We will therefore continue to operate our classrooms with limited populations. In this way, we can more realistically prepare traffic paths, instill new habits and maintain clean air quality. We will also be developing our Ashton Grace Montessori “outdoor classrooms” for use whenever needed. This is a particularly active project for the 2023-2024 school year.