Reply to Franklin Montessori student age 3 left in Forest Hills Park by teachers today

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[quote=Anonymous]Please see my answers below:

Thank you for this information - this is very helpful. A few questions to hopefully get more clarity: 
[i]
1 - What exactly happened that resulted in this latest incident where the child was left behind at the park? My understanding is that this has happened twice at Franklin in a few years - with small children left behind unattended at a public park. In addition to the very obvious safety issues (particularly in light of recent news reports about men in a van trying to abduct children in the DC area), this has to be emotionally traumatizing for the child. How hard is it to take the very minimal procedure of taking attendance at the beginning of the outing and then take attendance again at the end of the outing before they leave the park? My concern is that this does not seem like a difficult safeguard to implement and yet the school has fallen down on this front not once, but twice. [/i]

The Director was watching a group of students at the park and took them back to school for an activity. One child asked to stay behind with the other children who were there and she let her. When the Director came to escort the other children back from the park, the child who had remained back from the first group was left behind. Essentially, she made a decision to go outside of protocol, and forgot.

2 - [i]If the children are no longer going to the off-site playground, where will they play? Franklin does not have much outdoor space of its own, correct? Their website talks about their "Beyond the Walls" outdoor education/nature program. Does this mean the Beyond the Walls program is discontinued or are there alternatives planned to expose the kids to nature? [/i]
There is an outdoor playground that I think it totally fine. It's not huge, but a whole class can play there very easily. There is also a huge gym in the basement where the kids play when it's cold. The nature program is not being discontinued, just the trips to the public playground up the street. The nature program is awesome and your child will love it. Sometimes we take our son and dog to the trails on the weekends and it's a lot of fun having our son show us around.

3 - [i]I think a PP had asked this but I did not see an answer. Is this school actually accredited by either Montessori association - AMI or AMS? Or does it just call itself "Montessori"? We had been considering Montessori programs in DC but it is not clear to us what Franklin's actual Montessori accreditation is, or if it has any at all. [/i]
I'm not sure - you can probably call the school and ask. My guess is that they are: I went to Montessori school through 5th grade, and they use all the materials, techniques, etc. I remember from my preschool and elementary years, and the teachers attend a Montessori conference and other Montessori professional development programs throughout the year.

Thanks! [/quote]

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