First day of school in El Paso ISD comes with new friends, Montessori classrooms

Outside Paul C. Moreno Elementary School, some parents were more worried about the first day of school than their children, who happily reunited with friends, met teachers and lined up for the 2023-24 school year.

El Paso Independent School District had its first day for students Monday, Aug. 7.

Moreno Elementary School, located in Central El Paso, is the pioneer in EPISD for offering Montessori classes, attracting families from across the city.

For Ricardo Jaloma and Ana Bernal, ensuring their son, Noah, continues to learn Spanish spoken at home is a priority. Despite living in the far Northeast, they have chosen to send their 3-year-old son to prekindergarten at Moreno due to the elementary school's dual language program.

Noah's class is taught in Spanish in the morning and English in the afternoon, or vice-versa, Jaloma explained. The family is delighted to have access to a public school environment that reflects their bilingual lifestyle at home.

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Nicholas Bennett, who lives on Fort Bliss, enrolls his daughters, ages 7 and 9, in school at Moreno because of the school's self-contained classrooms — a smaller educational setting that supports students with special needs.

Natalie Schimkus and her daughter Destiny, 6, recently moved into the district over the summer. Instead of reuniting with old friends on the first day of school, Destiny will have the opportunity to make new friends. Both Destiny and her mother see the first day of school as an exciting chance to start anew in a new social setting.

Public Montessori classes in El Paso

Beyond offering dual language, special education and traditional elementary school classes, Moreno Elementary School is the first in EPISD to offer Montessori-style classrooms, which emphasize student independence and hands-on learning in a non-traditional setting.

Public Montessori schools are rare, usually relegated to the private sphere. EPISD's Montessori project, largely the brainchild of Superintendent Diana Sayavedra, first began to take shape in January 2023. The first Montessori classes commenced on Monday, Aug. 7, with the start of the school year in EPISD.

Angelica Paz, the early learning coordinator with the Specialized Learning Services wing of EPISD, was closely involved with the process of building a public Montessori school in El Paso "from the ground up."

She described a process of recruiting interested parents, holding meetings and town halls before the school year began. As part of EPISD's efforts to boost pre-K enrollment, the Montessori program now boasts 88 students across four classrooms, with students ranging from 3 to 6 years old.

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Moreno's Montessori classrooms are arranged differently from a traditional learning environment. Instead of desks in rows facing a teacher and a whiteboard, the classrooms have tables for four students. The decor features earth tones, and the furniture is all wooden. With short desks, cabinets, and low cubbies, the entire room is purpose-built for young children, reflecting the radically child-centered philosophy of the Montessori method.

Yazmin Villagran is a new teacher in EPISD but has been immersed in Montessori education for most of her professional life. After growing up in Mexico, she pursued the Montessori method of education in Italy, where the educational movement began in the early 1900s.

For Villagran, who has taught in private Montessori schools for decades, a public program is important. She is excited for "every family to have the choice between traditional and Montessori" for their children in El Paso and hopes Moreno is just the start.

This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: EPISD students head back to school for first day of 2023-24 year