Hershey Montessori School Receives ISACS Provisional Member Status

Hershey Montessori School Receives ISACS Provisional Member Status

Oct 8, 2020 | Featured Posts, School News | 0 comments

Hershey Montessori School has good news to celebrate. ISACS, the Independent Schools Association of the Central States, has approved Hershey as a provisional member, which is the first step towards becoming an ISACS-accredited school. Hershey’s Steering Committee, which began its work in early 2019, is pleased to share this information with the Hershey community.

The Benefits of ISACS Membership

(From the ISACS website)

ISACS provides a wide variety of professional development programs for its members. Administrators and teachers are given opportunity to attend ISACS conferences, including the Annual Conference, Heads Conference, Leadership Academy in Partnership with the Kellogg School of Management Center for Nonprofit Management, and New Teacher Institute. ISACS also offers topic-specific workshops and convenient webinars for its members.
In addition to these benefits, ISACS staff members provide facilitated conversations with member schools on topics of governance, accreditation, and other areas. Members have access to the National Association of Independent Schools’ DASL tool for data reporting and benchmarking.

Moving Forward

With Provisional Membership approval, Hershey may now begin the process for full accreditation that involves preparation of the self-study report and accreditation visit. Getting to this stage required submission of our Provisional Membership Application (PMA). The PMA provides ISACS with an assessment of an organization that ensures it currently complies with the standards for full ISACS membership. The PMA required Hershey to provide documented evidence of compliance across 52 standards for membership, including our current policies and practices; mission, philosophy, and goals; school community; programs and activities, student services; governance and administration, personnel; and residential programs. We submitted our PMA in February of this year, which was reviewed and approved by the ISACS board in May.

The impetus to pursue ISACS accreditation came from the growing needs of our school. When Hershey’s Upper School was added five years ago, our community became keenly aware that resources and support provided to independent schools by ISACS would support our plans for continued growth. Our leadership then surveyed teachers, staff, and board members for input on the decision to begin the accreditation process. Together, we concluded that membership in ISACS would be of great benefit to our school and community.

Hershey’s ISACS Steering Committee includes Paula Leigh-Doyle, Laurie Ewert-Krocker, Tania Bertolone, Jennifer Finan, Valerie Raines, and Saren Peetz.

We look forward to the added value this organization will bring to our community.

To learn more about Hershey Montessori, visit our about page here

The 2020 Hershey Cosmic Run is On!

The 2020 Hershey Cosmic Run is On!

Sep 28, 2020 | Events, Featured Posts | 0 comments

We are pleased to announce our annual Hershey Cosmic Run is going forward! We are grateful for the opportunity to provide this healthy, family-friendly event that so many have now made an autumn tradition.

It all happens Saturday, October 24, 2020 9:00 am at Observatory Park in the Geauga Park District. 

You may register to run at Observatory Park or you  can register as a Virtual Runner to show your support from anywhere in the world.

Please see more details on our 5K page or contact Julie Loxterman at jloxterman@hershey-montessori.org.

We hope to see you there!

Don’t Miss Our Hershey Market Fair!

Don’t Miss Our Hershey Market Fair!

Sep 28, 2020 | Events | 0 comments

Save the date – October 10th, 11 am – 3 pm! We are excited to offer this innovative alternative to our Fall Harvest Festival. Gather your family, jump in your car, and head to our Huntsburg campus for our drive in Hershey Market Fair. Enjoy several different stands positioned along the campus route by simply driving up, viewing the student offerings, choosing to purchase, and moving along to the next stand. We are so proud of the work the students have put into this creative idea. We hope you are able to come out, connect, and support their work. What better way to safely create more cherished Hershey memories during Northeast Ohio’s most beautiful season?!

Here’s a glimpse of the route design for when you arrive:

We hope to see you there!

Order and Beauty Prevail

Order and Beauty Prevail

Sep 21, 2020 | School Blog | 0 comments

By Judy Kline-Venaleck, Associate Head of School and Huntsburg Campus Director

“Order…things in their place. It means a knowledge of the arrangement of objects in the child’s surroundings, a recollection of the place where each belongs. And this means that he can orient himself in his environment, possess it in all its details. We mentally possess an environment when we know it so as to find our way with our eyes shut, and find all we want within hands’ reach. Such a place is essentially for the tranquility and happiness of life.” ~ Dr. Maria Montessori, The Secret of Childhood

In the past several months, the Coronavirus has certainly turned our sense of order upside down. Covid’s impact — on how we educate our students, the economy, working remotely, juggling our family’s emotional well-being, racial strife and a divisive political landscape — is like nothing we have had to address in our modern society. Dr. Montessori emphasized order and beauty for children of all ages for a variety of reasons. For adolescents, emphasizing external order (the classroom, the adult, the response) allows the adolescent to establish their own internal order, which is an essential aspect in their development. Covid has encouraged (albeit forced) us to re-evaluate our established sense of order, so that we may continue to meet the adolescent’s needs and promote both safe and healthy social development. It has been a joy to see the students re-emerge from this displaced sense of order of the past several months to both re-establish, and continue to develop, their own internal order. As they do so, we will continue to be by their side guiding, encouraging, and fostering new pathways. These adolescents show us every day the resilience that is their foundation, the perseverance of their spirit and the essential pathway of hope.

Hershey Launches Reopening Plan

Hershey Launches Reopening Plan

Aug 10, 2020 | Current Parents, Featured Posts, School News | 0 comments

Staff eager to welcome new and returning students to campus

Much of Hershey Montessori School’s staff and faculty spent the summer redesigning their campuses, classrooms, and education platforms. Their goal has been to ensure Hershey’s high-quality programs continue to serve students, staff, and families’ needs, while still maintaining an authentic Montessori approach.

Hershey is slated to reopen both campuses later this month with a redesigned face-to-face learning experience for all students. An enhanced remote learning option is also being offered to adolescent students. The on-campus designs are centered around small cohorts of students and implementing all recommended health practices, while enhancing the experience by availing of as much education in our outdoor environments as possible.

“The aspects we learned from last spring’s unexpected launching of remote learning created the opportunity to greatly enhance our remote learning experience,” said Head of School, Paula Leigh-Doyle. “Significant purchases of new technologies will allow for greater engagement and a more interactive experience for our students.” 

The school recently released its Healthy Reopening Family Manual that provides insight to its plans and protocols for each educational level of the school. The manual also outlines health and safety protocols and various measures that have been implemented to ensure the well-being of Hershey students, staff and community. The highly-detailed plan is the result of collective input from faculty, staff, students, and parents through surveys and feedback, as well as the collaboration of Hershey’s Contingency Planning Team. The manual, already on it’s second edition, will evolve as new information and recommendations are brought to light.

Ohio’s governor is set to provide additional school guidelines on August 13th. Hershey will make an announcement to its school community on August 14th regarding any changes or additional information that needs to be communicated based on the outcome of the governor’s press conference.

We recognize the the state of uncertainty that we all have endured since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many families are still seeking school options. Hershey is still accepting applications for fall enrollment. We are prepared, and we are excited to safely welcome new and returning students this fall!