Montessori Mastery School of Odessa is starting its year with new additions — prekindergarten 3-year-olds through third grade.
The school, which started Aug. 23, goes through 12th grade. Randy McGuire, who co-directs the school with his wife, Gloria, said he doesn’t know how many students they will get, but there is a maximum of 20 in each.
The McGuires had a friend, Debra Rainey, who ran Rainey Montessori School. She retired three years go and no one took her place.
“So there’s been this, this vacuum. There’s the Montessori School up the street, but they end of age 5 and we just wanted to be able to do the complete education journey,” McGuire said. … It’s the right thing to do,” he said.
“If we fill the lower grades and we expect to, we’ll have approximately 120,” McGuire said.
He added that Montessori Mastery has highly qualified teachers and teacher’s aides.
“We’ve been blessed with great staff,” McGuire said.
He noted that summer is downtime for them, but the Montessori school is what they are called to do. He said they will be glad to get back into a more regular routine, with caution due to COVID.
Everyone is comfortable with the optional masking and the school has enough room for social distancing, he said.
“… The challenge is going to be in these lower grades. Everything is manipulatives, so it’s going to have to be sanitized. When one child finishes, it’ll have to be sanitized before they for the next child can use it. But we’ll be big on all of the sanitation; aspects of it,” McGuire said.
Teachers at Montessori Mastery need their degree for the school’s accreditation, but they don’t need to be state certified. The school does conduct criminal background checks, but they also know many of those on staff personally.
The school is accredited through Cognia and this is an accreditation year for Montessori Mastery.
“… I think that they’re tough and we wanted someone tough, because we want to make sure that we are doing the very, very, very best that we can possibly do here,” McGuire said.
The school is located in St. Andrew Cumberland Presbyterian Church at 1415 N. Grandview Ave. Although they are in the church, they are not run by it.
But McGuire said they see it as a ministry.
“… There’s a spirituality to Montessori that lifts children and gives them a true lifelong love of learning …,” he said.
McGuire added that it doesn’t matter what a student’s learning style is the school will strive to meet their needs. At the same time, the school sets high standards.
“That’s what we’re looking at; what do they need and how do we meet those needs and help them in that journey?” he added.
The school helps prepare youngsters for the world after school. But he said they don’t believe every child needs a college education.
“… There are great careers and professions that don’t require a college degree,” McGuire said. “So that’s what we want is given them that foundation. If they elect to go to college, they can do that. But if they elect to go into the trades, (or) any other profession … we have a well-rounded curriculum. We’re not just focused in on narrow areas of testing, but a well-rounded (curriculum) … to introduce them to the world and the opportunities that exist for them.”
McGuire said they have total confidence in the Montessori method.
“It’s over 100 years old and it’s highly effective when it’s done the right way. And that’s our ambition is to do it 100% correctly,” he added.
They were going to expand the school, but they settled on renovating rooms, because they couldn’t get the building contractors lined up.
“… We have painted, new lights and new carpet and made beautiful classrooms, but we had the space existing space already here so we didn’t have to do the extensive renovations we talked about. We just had to do some sprucing up,” McGuire said.
