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Sandy Houston is a cofounder and past board member of the Arizona Charter Schools Association, as well as founder of the Arizona Montessori Charter Schools Consortium. She has owned and operated charter schools over a career spanning 42 years, and has opened nine private Montessori schools and four charter schools. She was trained in the Montessori method by Mario Montessori, the son of the famed Montessori founder, Dr. Maria Montessori. She serves as the International Montessori Council chair for charter schools. Contact Sandy through the following email address: jkrygier@resolutions-esp.com. All emails will be forwarded on to her.
“Good management begins with good people.” Or so said Paul Newman in the movie Cool Hand Luke. Communication is probably the most overused but least understood term in any organization. If you look at any employee survey, the biggest complaint is “lack of communication by upper management.” How often have you heard, “No one...
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Editor’s note: This is part 2 of an article on the value of field trips for students. Part 1 ran in the April issue of the Charter School Monthly.] As a charter school director for many years I encouraged my staff to take field trips. In Montessori we refer to these excursions as “going...
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As a charter school director for many years I encouraged my staff to take field trips. In Montessori we refer to these excursions as “going out.” These excursions are wonderful ways to extend what is learned in school to the greater world outside our doors. They help children better understand their community by allowing...
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Does your charter school fall short of your ideals? While you may wholeheartedly embrace a developmental approach for children in your care, expecting and even looking forward to the mistakes they will make as they learn along the way, you are less than patient with yourself, your coworkers, and your administration as you try,...
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This article and bibliography are intended to help educators, who should use research and literature to support why they use the methods they do in their classrooms. Ideally, it will also foster ideas to help them do more writing and professional learning. After all, we as educators – just like our students – should...
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Dictionaries give two major definitions for the term discipline. One of these is “training that develops self control, character or orderliness, and efficiency.” The other is “treatment that corrects and punishes.” These definitions start from two quite different conceptions of the child and childrearing. The first begins with the idea that children are born...
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While there has been a significant amount written on helping children resolve conflict and problem solve, little seems to have been written about educators resolving conflict with others. I think staff conflict is an important issue that needs to be discussed in a positive manner so that people can disagree, sometimes vehemently about issues,...
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Sometimes families can bring us difficult challenges. They may want exceptions made to policies, or special considerations made for their child or their schedule. You’ll always have parents who want you to change your instructional program to be more academic and others who want you to lighten up and allow for more unstructured time....
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Despite all the talk about putting children first, our society is becoming increasingly hostile to its young. How different our schools, homes, and child care centers would be if parents and educators would defend children’s right to a childhood, instead of fixating on their progress and success. The pressure to excel is undermining childhood...
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