Public Montessori education is coming to Fort Collins!

The development of Fort Collins Montessori Charter School started in Feb 2011 with parent and teacher discussions. Now we are deep into the work of writing our charter application and extending outreach efforts to our Fort Collins community. It will take many to make this dream a reality, and now is the time for the community to come together and support this effort.

It is our ultimate goal to provide a high quality, authentic Montessori educational opportunity to families in Fort Collins regardless of racial, social, or economic background. We have chosen the Poudre School District as the authorizer of our application and we aim to open our school in the fall of 2014. We will deliver our charter application to PSD in August, 2013 for inspection and approval by the School Board of Education. If our application is approved, we plan to open as a pre/k-2nd school and to grow one grade level per year till we reach 9th grade in 2021. We do not yet have a location for our school because acquisition of facilities is a future step in the charter process. Facilities are finally determined, typically, after approval of the charter application by the District and after federal start-up funding is awarded. We are taking input, however, on a number of school development issues, including general location within the city limits of Fort Collins, on our community survey at www.surveymonkey.com/s/THWVF3Z.

Our mission:

Fort Collins Montessori School will implement an authentic Montessori teaching philosophy and curriculum because we believe deeply in providing an opportunity for all children to actualize their potential. Montessori’s approach or philosophy is, among other things, one of regard and respect for childhood, children, and the unique developmental process of the child. Dr. Montessori contended that the most important time for learning in a person’s life is from birth to age six, that childhood is to be respected as unique and separate from adulthood, and that children are naturally curious and posses a drive to learn and become independent given a safe, nurturing, and prepared learning environment. In the spirit of these principles, Maria Montessori developed a comprehensive curriculum which is multi-disciplinary, interconnected, sequenced, and vertically and horizontally aligned. Her comprehensive curriculum is designed to support and educate the “whole child” (the cognitive, physical, emotional, social, and spiritual aspects of a person). It is important to note that Dr. Montessori viewed our ultimate task in life as the quest to understand our place and purpose in the world. As such, an “authentic” Montessori curriculum includes Language Arts (Reading and Writing), Math, Life Sciences, Social and Cultural Studies, Geography, History, Art (including Music) and life skills (self care, problem solving, conflict resolution, belonging to community) all woven together in an interrelated web.

We hope you’ll join us as we move forward in this exciting new educational option for Fort Collins!

The post Public Montessori education is coming to Fort Collins! appeared first on Fort Collins Montessori School.