Orcas Montessori School Turns 30

— from Emily McGerty —

Orcas Montessori School, together with San Juan County, has received a HUD Community Block Development Grant for a major building expansion. The funds will allow the school to continue its tradition of growing with the needs of the Orcas Island community – a very fitting and appropriate way to celebrate Orcas Montessori School’s 30th birthday.

Over 100 years ago, Dr. Maria Montessori developed a new method of educating young children. “Dr. Montessori began by observing the natural spontaneous development of children,” says Tom Rubottom, OMS’s lead teacher of nearly 18 years, “and then, creating an ever-evolving environment to best support this growth over time, this developed into a modern, holistic Montessori curriculum.” Montessori opened her first school in a tenement building in a low-income area of Rome as part of an urban renewal project. Within a few years her technique spread across Europe, and within a decade there were Montessori schools on five continents.

With similarly humble beginnings, Moriah Armstrong founded Orcas Montessori School in 1987 in the basement of a West Sound home, serving a handful of students. It wasn’t long before growth demanded a move, and soon the school was housed in a double-wide trailer near the public school. Then, for a time, OMS resided in the public school’s old kindergarten room (now the music room), before finally settling in its current location on North Beach Road in 1998.

Throughout the past 30 years of growth and development, Orcas Montessori School has wholeheartedly pursued its commitment to nurturing the whole child. In 2000, the school installed a kitchen to provide hot organic meals under the umbrella of the Federal Food Program, ensuring each child receives quality nutrition to foster better learning. The school has also established a hands-on organic garden so children can participate in small-scale food production. To protect the environment, we have upgraded the current building with a high-efficiency heat pump and extensive weatherization. The school was also the first facility on Orcas to obtain a grant to install solar panels through the solar4schools project.

Though based on an established method with 100 years of success, Orcas Montessori School is an innovative program, always striving to meet the unique needs of a rural island community. The mission of the school is to provide a creative learning community for preschool and kindergarten children that nurtures each child’s unique gifts, love of learning, independence, and compassion for others.

“In order to serve as many island children as possible, the school has found many creative ways of bridging the socio-economic and cultural needs of Orcas families,” says director Teresa Chocano. “For instance, OMS is the only Montessori program in Washington state that participates in the Early Childhood Education Assistance Program (ECEAP). This has been instrumental in making sure quality education is accessible to all our island children.”

For nearly 20 years OMS provided a dual language summer program for Spanish- and English-speaking children to learn and share with one another. Several students, now in college, speak fondly of their summers at OMS and the love they developed of the Spanish language and culture, with some of these students majoring or minoring in Spanish studies.

Eventually, the Montessori movement on Orcas Island could no longer be contained to just a few short years of a child’s education. In 2004, a group of parents whose children were in the OMS pre-k program decided they wanted their children to continue to receive the education that was so clearly benefiting them. These parents petitioned the public school to add a Montessori classroom for grades 1-3 and raised all the funds needed for classroom materials and teacher training. To this day that program, available through the public school, is a popular option with a waiting list each year.

Like the vibrant and lively children who come through the purple door every morning year after year, Orcas Montessori School has a bright and full future ahead. The last 30 years have been busy years, certainly, and yet there is always more to do.

“The HUD Community Block Development Grant will allow Orcas Montessori School to meet Washington state’s intention to provide universal preschool and to better meet the needs of our island’s families,” explains Chocano. “We plan to expand the classroom to accommodate more students and provide space for younger students to rest so they may attend a full school day. Our upcoming auction on April 28 will continue our efforts to raise the matching funds required for this grant as well as bridge the gap between tuition and operating expenses.”

Though Maria Montessori likely didn’t realize how her ideas would affect the world when she developed her methods over 100 years ago, and Moriah Armstrong couldn’t have known that her little basement school would eventually evolve to serve more than 500 Orcas Island children, it is clear that Orcas Montessori School has a foundation of vision and innovation. These qualities, combined with the creative leadership of Chocano and the enthusiastic guidance of “Teacher Tom,” along with a very capable support staff, parents and board, has provided a wonderful haven of learning, growth, and community for many of our island children.

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“I remember walking into Montessori when I was three or four, and I fell in love with the atmosphere,” recalls OMS alum Melanie Flint of her formative years at Orcas Montessori School. “I remember learning how to do things for myself and by myself, and my curiosity was constantly fueled by every question I had answered by Tom, Ina, and Teresa. They built a community of functioning individuals, and I felt highly capable of being myself at the age of four. The Montessori community inspired and instilled a desire to keep learning about the world in the visual way that I needed. I figured out my own style of learning, and that has transcended through to my hardest university courses. The community creates a mindset that allows for children to grow into themselves, and I am grateful for that to this very day.”

All in all, Orcas Montessori School has quite a bit to reflect upon when contemplating the past 30 years. But its staff says looking forward is their preferred perspective. The upcoming expansion marks a very exciting time for the school; knowing this project will ultimately improve the quality of care received by many of our youngest islanders is a wonderful motivator for all involved. The next 30 years are sure to be bright, full, and rich ones, indeed.