New Lavallette public preschool first in NJ to use Montessori method

LAVALLETTE - When Lisa Gleason had the opportunity to tour a Montessori preschool in 2019, the former kindergarten teacher immediately was captivated by the unique care of a Montessori education.

So when Gleason became superintendent of the Lavallette School District in December, partnering with Montessori Public Works to open the first New Jersey Montessori preschool connected to a public school district was among her first initiatives.

A Montessori education serves as an alternate learning style to traditional schooling, placing an emphasis on individualized learning, focusing students on their own interests at a young age and encourages a love of learning and for them to progress through a curriculum at their own speed.

“Having the opportunity to take this tour, just the impact of seeing 3-, 4-, 5- and 6-year-olds in a classroom and truly the teacher acting as a guide on the side and not directing every moment, and (not) directing the learning, but supporting the learning that was directed by the student, it really turns traditional teaching on its side,” said Gleason.

The preschool is set to welcome students this fall and has already had families register, Gleason said. The Montessori school changes Lavallette from a K-eighth grade school district to a pre-K to eighth grade district.

Gleason, who has worked in districts with preschools in the past, said implementing a preschool into a K-8 district is "monumental" and that she needed something special for the approximately 140-student Lavallette school district when making the decision to add a level.

“We were looking for a program that had really strong foundational principles of social, emotional learning, social interaction, student choice, truly developing a love of learning,” Gleason said of the preschool, for which Lavallette is going to charge $6,500 a year for in-district students and $9,500 for students outside of the district.

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Montessori school tuition   can often cost upward of $10,000 per year.

"Montessori has always been affiliated with a private program with a pretty heavy price tag. Where now your moving it within the walls of a public school district, although it is tuition based and at a much more affordable cost for parents," Gleason said.

After seeing the positive effects a Montessori education had on her two children, Angie Schiavoni founded Montessori Public Works in 2019 for the purpose of bringing Montessori learning to public schools in New Jersey. The company aids school districts in the implementation of Montessori programs, including training teachers and administrators in the Montessori curriculum.

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“The research is there on the academics and I see it in both my children and other children as well,” Schiavoni explained. “But there’s also that we see these kids are kind, they learn how to respect their environment, how to respect the children around them and they really do learn how to be part of a community.”

A 2017 study that evaluated two Connecticut-based Montessori schools from Frontiers in Psychology said “Montessori students fared far better on measures of academic achievement, social understanding and mastery orientation, and they also reported relatively more liking of scholastic tasks.”

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Maria Belen Carrasco has been a Montessori educator for more than two decades and has spent the past five years at Havenwood Montessori in Howell.

“Independence is very important and that they be able to solve their own problems is also important. That’s something that this environment teaches them,” Belen Carrasco explained. “If they have independence, they're OK with their way of thinking or their opinions.”

There are more than 100 private Montessori schools in New Jersey and more than 500 publicly funded Montessori-schools around the country, although they have been most common in affluent areas.

Schiavoni hopes the Lavallette preschool to be a catalyst for the creation of other schools like it around New Jersey.

“When you see them, you just want them for more communities and more children that want them in their community,” Schiavoni said. “That’s what we’ve been doing and working with them (the children) and I see it as a real model program for other communities that might want to see something like this in their community.”

Shaun Chornobroff is an intern with the Asbury Park Press and entering his senior year at Rider University, majoring in sports media with a minor in journalism. He is the executive editor of the Rider's student newspaper and a resident of Jackson. Reach him at SChornobroff@gannett.com

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Lavallette NJ: Preschool first to use Montessori method