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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Is the idea that only kids who have been in Montessori charters will be able to attend or will kids from traditional schools also be able to attend?[/quote]

And how will they afford to operate with such a limited applicant pool?[/quote]

This.  Basically kids from Lee, CHML, and private Montessoris or schools outside DC?

What about someone who graduated from, say, Langdon in 5th, went somewhere for 6th, and then wanted into "Truth" (Hate the name, btw) for 7th?[/quote]

CHM@L answered some similar questions at its open house. Could kids who haven’t been in a Montessori school apply to its 6th grade? They said they would evaluate kids’ situations on a case-by-case basis, working their way down the waitlist. If kids had some Montessori in pre-K, and families were dedicated to the methods at home, they would be considered, etc. That’s just an example.

I think another thing to consider is that Maria Montessori didn’t really leave us with a workable 7-12 pedagogy. She had even more radical ideas that fall too far outside of the traditional system for modern schools to be strictly (or even semi-strictly) “Montessori.” So modern 7-12 educators are really forging new paths. At CHM@L, middle school isn’t so different from traditional middle schools. I’m curious to see what the Truth School comes up with in terms of instructional design and pedagogy. But I can imagine them working with kids who have been through non-Montessori programs.

Just thinking out loud....[/quote]

I am extremely, extremely skeptical that the charter board would allow a school to assess family home environment in that manner.  They're basically being allowed to cherry-pick the most motivated and, let's face it, higher-income parents.  I think that would be an injustice and likely result in a lawsuit.[/quote]

Fair point ????[/quote]

If they're saying that a month out from the application deadline, they're pretty confused.  Time to get real.  It will be very, very hard to fill up a class at an untested middle school with entirely students with recent or significant Montessori experience.  There just aren't that many of them and you'd have to compete with better-established schools.  The 8th graders would be almost entirely students with no Montessori experience.  But we're supposed to think that will work well enough that the very next year, they'll be ready to open and operate a high school?  Who's going to go to this school?

Look at the experience of ITS, CMI, and Two Rivers.  It's really, really hard to get a middle school off the ground, because the budget requires backfilling with new kids who haven't necessarily been well-served by their prior schools.  Current families don't all stay, especially if they don't like what they're seeing in the middle school grades.  [/quote]

I haven't heard them say anything about assessing home environments. What I was told is they are well aware that the first few years they will have higher percentages of non-Montessori kids because many of the Montessori schools don't yet have full upper el classrooms (or any at all in the case of Breakthrough). But that the idea is that the Montessori kids will stay in their schools through 6th grade and start at Truth in 7th. And non-Montessori kids could have the opportunity to enter in 6th grade to get more acclimated to a Montessori environment.

Sounds like they have the application ready to submit next week and are collecting additional letters of support. The hearing will be in April with the PCSB. And they are working through how they'd advocate for a feeder system using the same argument DCI did (i.e. parents have invested this amount of time and effort in a specialized curriculum and should be allowed to continue it). Allegedly have support from Mendehlson and Grosso. Obviously tougher without Catania around. [/quote]

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