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St. Joseph Montessori School honored and delighted
by Karen Edwards
The Saint Joseph Montessori School (SJMS) has just received its second designation as a Blue Ribbon School from the U. S. Department of Education.
The private school (SJMS is a member of the Diocese of Columbus) is located at 933 Hamlet Street in Italian Village, with an additional classroom for three to five-year-olds in the Victorian Village area.
SJMS is one of only 17 Ohio schools - and the only Central Ohio school - to receive the honor. To qualify, SJMS students had to rank in the top 10 percent in the nation on standardized achievement tests.The first blue ribbon
SJMS was awarded its first Blue Ribbon in 1994, when the criteria used for judging schools was the process the school used to help students excel. That's why this award, based on student achievement, seems especially sweet.
“The first Blue Ribbon honored our commitment to excellence, and this one confirms the success of our approach to education,” says SJMS Principal Donna Barton.
Lucia McQuaide, superintendent of Columbus Catholic Schools, points out that SJMS is the first of 55 schools in the Diocese to win the Blue Ribbon under the new criteria. “Excellence in education has long been this school's hallmark,” she says. “Winning this award for the second time is well deserved.”
SJMS has been in the area since 1968. Its current enrollment stands at almost 300 children - a number that has been steadily increasing over the past 10 years, says SJMS Development Director Jim Mengel.
Principal Donna Barton and teacher Laura Miller travelled to Washington, D.C., earlier this month to receive the Blue Ribbon award given to their school Multiple-grade classrooms
Children can enter the Blue-Ribbon school as young as three years old, and at the age of six they enter the first grade.
Since the Montessori program combines multiple grades in one classroom, the first-grade Montessori student will be placed in a classroom not only with his or her peers, but with second and third graders as well. Fourth, fifth and sixth grades are combined. So are seventh and eighth grades.
The multiple grade approach has several advantages, says Mengel.
“The older students mentor the younger students in the classroom, and the younger students provide the older students with a constant source of wonderment,” he says. After all, it's hard to be jaded about learning when a classroom colleague is always asking, “Why?”
In addition, teachers and students who spend three years together can develop a relationship that is sometimes left behind in school systems where an annual change of teachers is the norm.The SJMS faculty
According to Mengel, half the teachers at SJMS have taught at the school 10 years or more, and three-fourths of them have been trained in the Montessori method. (Of course it helps that SJMS offers such a training program, and has for years.)
In addition to an integrated classroom, Montessori schools focus on a multi-sensory approach to education, children progress at their own pace, and the teacher is trained to observe as well as educate.
“You won't find much lecturing going on in a Montessori school,” says Mengel. Instead, the teacher presents the lesson, then stands back to watch how it's absorbed. If the teacher sees a child does not understand, he or she can intervene to provide the child immediate attention. And if the child grasps the lesson quickly, he or she may move on to another project - even if it's a grade level above.
“The teacher as observer also has the advantage of keeping on top of the children's social development,” says Mengel. Teachers can quickly see who works best on his or her own, who works best in team settings, and how well classmates get along with each other.Broad mix of students
Students at SJMS are from a range of backgrounds, represent a broad spectrum of intelligence levels (“we have no academic requirements,” says Mengel), and come from all over the central Ohio area.
“We draw from 42 zip codes,” says Mengel. Some come to SJMS from as far away as London, Ohio.
“We're centrally located, and near major highways, so it's easily accessible,” Mengel adds.
Downtown workers and OSU employees especially find the school's Italian Village location convenient.
And convenience is important if you want parents to be active supporters of the school.Supportive parents
“We have an active parent group known as the SJMS Family Association,” says Mengel.
Like any parent-teacher organization, SJMS Family Association members volunteer in the library and as classroom readers, they plan grandparents day, hold book sales, and will even babysit for SJMS parents who want to enjoy the Short North's monthly gallery hop.
“What makes our school unique is that it's governed by a board of trustees that is elected from the parent body,” says Mengel.
Certainly, that would give SJMS parents a greater feeling of ownership in the school and their children's education.
And certainly, they must be as proud as the school's faculty and administrative staff of SJMS's second Blue Ribbon.
The award was presented to principal Donna Barton and teacher Laura Miller at special ceremonies on Nov. 5, at the Washington, D.C., Hilton and Towers.
Mengel says the school will observe the distinction in two ways. “We'll have an evening affair for adults, but the teachers are planning a way to both celebrate the award and create an academic challenge for the students” - not unlike the school's ambitious celebration of the millennium, in which a goal was set to read 2000 books by the turn of the new century.
No matter how they choose to celebrate, however, the Short North and its surrounding areas should be proud that it's home to one of Ohio's very few Blue Ribbon schools.
