A History of Montessori at GW
Before Montessori: George Washington Elementary was the lowest performing elementary school in the District
2007: Montessori Program starts with a customized plan to integrate Montessori and state standards.
2007-2017: Successfully Built Over ten years, lots of investment and hard work create a thriving Montessori program that incorporates state standards. By 2017, school overall academic performance was equal to other schools in the district while also building all the "unteachable" skills, like learning-how-to-learn, that Montessori is known for.
Dramatic positive improvement shows at the school & local families love the program.
GW students kept improving through Middle School, while other schools' performance was static.
In the ten years that GW had a fully supported Montessori program, it went from a school “in need of improvement" to a school in “good standing.”
Parents, students and staff all report [to DTSDE reviewers} that they are "overwhelmingly happy with the culture & environment"
Montessori effects seen by DTSDE review "Students exhibit a high level of academic and social independence that is not traditional for that developmental age group."
2017-2018: The KCSD's own data in a longitudinal study shows students who attended the Montessori program all the way through Elementary outperform the district on both Math and Reading/Writing. Conclusively, the diverse population of students at GW are more successful & are better served by a fully supported Montessori program (when All teachers for grades Pre-K through 3rd were MACTE montessori certified). The school is a point of pride for Kingston, as positive press reflects.
See the district's glowing report based on its OWN DATA (top district performance shown p. 17 & p. 19)
The Daily Freeman “Montessori results hearten Kingston schools chief” (2018/01/11) ,
The Daily Freeman "Kingston schools report coming on Montessori" here (2017/10/19)
The Daily Freeman "Kingston School Board gets more pressure to keep Montessori program" (2017/11/02),
2018: KCSD hired consultant recommends in a 1/10/18 report the school and district should take the following actions to improve upon the school's already "amazing results":
"work to improve community and district understanding of Montessori (special permission . . ."
"allocation of resources for more consistent– regular training for GW Montessori staff – intensive for new staff."
2019: The founding principal retires. Valerie Hannum had started the program and championed it for 10+ years.
April 2019: The PTO is concerned about the principal search. PTO writes to the Superintendent that the promised search for a principal with "adequate Montessori experience" has not been "true" or thorough. The PTO had made extensive and repeated recommendations for the search but "never found any job posting for the GW position in any of the publications we recommended". The Daily Freeman follows parents' ultimately unsuccessful fight to get a "Montessori" principal.
The Daily Freeman "Kingston to search for a new montessori principal" (2018/10/13)
The Daily Freeman "Kingston school district widens search for George Washington Elementary principal"
The Daily Freeman "Some Kingston parents uneasy about search for George Washington Elementary principal"
2019: KCSD hires a candidate without prior Montessori experience, stopping the search and settling on an internal candidate as Principal at GW.
Mar 2020: The Montessori program is suspended when the pandemic hits. Suspension is supposed to be temporary.
2020- Present: Montessori teacher trainings drop off precipitously and new hires are not necessarily selected for Montessori compatibility.
2020, 2021, 2022* The School's status is downgraded. The school is no longer in "good standing" per NYS Dept of Ed.
*We are unsure exactly when this happened, but Dr. Felicello said at a 3/20/23 PTO meeting (audio recording here) that it had been downgraded for the "last three years".
2021-Present: "Marketing" type Information about the program grows scant. Families who might want to request transfers to the school have little information to go on. Despite the 2018 consultant recommendation to "work to improve community and district understanding of Montessori (special permission . . ."
Fourth graders no longer give tours of the school to prospective students' families. The previous school administration had developed a program for these shining student examples of Montessori success to communicate their enthusiasm to prospective families.
Prospective families cannot tour the school at all before making a school choice
It is not obvious anywhere online that Kingston parents CAN and SHOULD ask for special permission to transfer to a different school if they are simply more interested in that school. If they discover the options at all, many parents say they assumed classes wer already full and this is only permitted for "special" circumstances. There is certainly no indication that the # of these requests naming Montessori will be a main data point in determining the program's future.
2023 Data gathered in a closed door process by KCSD are reported to show a dip in the school's performance overall, among sensitive subgroups, and a dip in requests to transfer to GW. This is the same time frame as the dip in support for Montessori trainings and marketing of the Montessori program.
Currently, up to 65% of classroom staff at the school are not Montessori trained, despite multiple requests for training from some. PTO members & former teachers, believe putting teachers without Montessori training in supposedly Montessori-State Standard classrooms is a recipe for failure and have been lobbying the administration and board on teachers' behalf for trainings.
Feb 2023 At a Teaching and Learning committee meeting, Dr. Stacia Felicello, the Assistant Superintendent, presents information that portrays the school as failing, suggests that Montessori is the cause of recent performance & enrollment dips. There is no clear argument for causality or arguments ruling out non-Montessori causes (e.g. the district falling off in its promised support and 2018 consultant recommendations). Nonetheless, the recommendation is to alter the multi-grade classroom structure (an integral component of Montessori pedegogy) and eliminate the 3 year old UPK program.
2/15/23 Dr. Felicello's presents to the Board of Education. Notably, she claims that the parent teacher organization has been consulted, when, in fact, the PTO was NOT consulted.
Video of Board of Education Meeting, see marker 2:09
2/16/23 SAVE GW MONTESSORI effort begins. A large group of shocked parents coalesce, collectively witnessing and taking issue with a lack of proper communication, a lack of opportunities for meaningful participation, data collection by the district that lacks rigor, a lack of proof of causality, and the knee-jerk nature of proposed changes. The GW PTO and community members find agreement around a BETTER counter-proposal-- TO RESTORE PROMISED SUPPORT to the previously successful Montessori program.
2/21/23 Parents and community members send a letter with over 100 signatures taking issue with proposed changes to Montessori at GW.
2/22/23 Superintendent Paul Padalino and Asst. Superintendent Felicello are scheduled to present proposed changes to teachers at the school Wed 2/22 8:00 am. Parents still have not been consulted. Parents and community members show up with signs outside the school to peacefully voice their concerns. The Event is cancelled.
2/23/23 Parents and community members send a second letter to the Superintendent and members of the Board of Education taking issue with the KCSD methods used to gather information and make recommendations
2/23/23 Parents and community members send a second letter to the Superintendent and members of the Board of Education taking issue with the KCSD methods used to gather information and make recommendations