The Brooklyn Montessori

At Montessori Day School of Brooklyn (Brooklyn Montessori Ltd), we continued to serve families and children in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn through the 2021-22 school year. We worked with up to 109 two- to five-year-old children daily, in seven classrooms, using our Montessori-focused pedagogy to help them grow as independent learners and engaged participants, both here at school and in the wider community.Faculty (both lead teacher, assistant level and administration) continued to develop their Montessori-based skills and knowledge by attending the yearly American Montessori Society (AMS) conference for 2019 held in Washington DC; by attending intensive infant/toddler or early childhood training programs at West Side Montessori School in Manhattan; by participating in online and local workshops offered by AMS and the center for emotionally responsive teaching practices; and by receiving mentorship from experienced and credentialed teachers in our program. We continued to hold onsite professional development workshops on topics ranging from lifesaving procedures to early childhood best practices. We continued working with parents by conferring with them individually about their childrens development and by preparing them for the next steps beyond this preschool program with our independent and public Next Schools Nights series, as well as through Montessori at Home and Parenting workshops. Teachers and the Exec. Director also provided parents with written guidance about expectations for children's growth and progress in a Montessori early childhood setting. We brought post pandimic family engagement back to MDS with our first community art show. We ended the year with the return of in-person classroom celebrations. We continued to allocate 2.3% of our annual budget toward funds reserved for our Tuition Assistance Program and maintained the maximum aid award at 50% assistance. The program was authorized to distribute up to $108,317.42 in aid to families for the 2021-22 school year.