Montessori Children's House will have a new home this fall. Photo by Dennis Chippa.
As summer approaches, parents of children at the Montessori Children’s House on Chippewa Street know they won’t have to scramble for a spot this fall.
Debbie Ashley, Montessori’s Executive Director, says after months of scrambling, she has managed to find a new place for the Centre, after rent in her current location became too difficult to manage.
“We are going to be working in the lower level of the Church of Christ at 73 Gertrude Street. I believe the YMCA had a program there for about sixteen years,”
“It’s a smaller location for us so our enrollment will drop a little bit but we’ll still have toddlers and we’ll still have junior and senior kindergarten and before and after school care.”
The hours will also be different, and Ashley admits the lower enrollment means some of the staff will not be going with her to the new school.
“I have a lot of people working with me for a long time and we have such a fantastic rapport, but I can’t take everybody.”
Ashley says the church elders and management have been more than helpful and have made the Centre welcome, which has helped a lot.
Back in the spring, when Ashley told parents the school may have to close, she said she wasn’t sure anyone was interested in keeping the school open.
She credits the parents with changing some minds.
“With all of the letters that our parents have written to the Ministry of Education, to DNSSAB to the School Board, it showed me that yes, Montessori was still a very viable form of education in North Bay. And I have been supported by the agencies that I had been given the impression that didn’t want us here anymore. They have all been very supportive now.”
The school will be closed over the summer while preparations for the move are made, but that’s normal practice at Montessori.
Ashley says some of the younger students will simply move into the school system, making some spots available, and making it easier for her to manage a lower enrollment.
Despite that lower enrollment, and the difficulty of saying goodbye to staff, Ashley says she is relieved the school will have a future.
“I wasn’t comfortable with the thought that this school where I’ve worked over the last thirty years being closed just because someone said it was going to be closed. So I have worked very, very hard to try and keep it open.”
“My heart is here with the children. I just can’t think of anything else I would rather be doing."
Parents with students currently enrolled in Montessori will get first chance at spots in the new Children’s House, and any other spots will be made available after that.
For those parents at least, the fact there's a place for their children to go in the fall should make summer a little easier.
