Article February 13, 2006 Issue

'Radiant room' for learning

A husband and wife find prayer a vital ingredient in locating a space for their school.

BY SHELDON AND CAMILLA THOMPSON

WE HAVE BEEN WORKING in the field of Montessori education, in the private sector, for almost 30 years. In the United States, public school facilities are funded by local, state, and federal taxes. When you run a private school, as we do, one of the challenges is finding an affordable location—especially on Long Island, New York, where the price of real estate is sky high.

For many years, we operated our elementary school program from a church. In 1992, the church took in another congregation that had many kids in its Sunday School. It soon became obvious we were going to lose our space. At this time, we orchestrated the sale of the school to a high-end day camp. Soon after arriving at our new facility, we realized that the new owners had different values and expectations for the school. Over time, it became increasingly difficult to remain true to our vision of the Montessori approach to education, which we feel works so successfully.

In early June 1999, the owners changed the terms of our employment in such a way that it would no longer be possible to operate the program according to our vision. After much discussion with our employers, we were told we would no longer be employed after the completion of the school year at the end of the month.