Montessori Academy of London | London, Ontario

What an incredible, yet exciting role we have to elevate the students here at MA. I am so grateful to be a part of a school where educators foster this notion every single day. Through freedom within limits, we provide the guidance needed to let our students’ skills develop and the nature of who they are unfold. It is a privilege to observe them fall into their own love of learning and self-discovery. There is amazing potential that resides in each one of our students; what does it take to make sure it is cultivated?

Intentional environments, dedicated staff following a curriculum based on the developmental needs of the child, engaged students, parents who hold up our community, and the Board that governs MA.

The magic of this school resides in all the elements that make us a thriving community; thank you for your continued support and growing along with us. Speaking of intentional environments, our 711 Elementary renovation project is days away from completion! With your ongoing fundraising support, along with funds the Board allocated for renovations, we were able to invest in creating purposeful spaces for all the elements of our community: two beautiful new classrooms and a library, resource rooms, parent meeting room, staff room and new cubby areas. We look forward to inviting you to explore these spaces soon.

Fair warning: coffee required! There is a lot of information and updates below to share.

The Finance Committee of the Board ran through numerous sensitivity analyses in order to recommend the tuition increase for Board approval. Historically, increases have hovered around 3% to 4% (depending on the level) despite riding the waves of economic challenges. I am pleased to share that we are staying on track with a similar increase this year.

This means tuition will increase to approximately $50 more per month depending on the program your child is in. Activity fees and lunch fees remain unchanged, however there is a small increase to the Early & Extended Hours program. For a full fee schedule for 2024-2025, please visit the Tuition & Fees section of our website: www.montessori.on.ca/admissions/tuition-fees/

There is a maximum capacity for every age of student in the school, therefore submitting sibling applications and completing re-enrolment within the timeframes outlined below is very important as we continue to receive a high volume of applications to the school.

You can contact Victoria Little, Registrar, if you have any questions about the sibling application or re-enrolment process: vlittle@montessori.on.ca

To meet the increase in demand for our full-day programs at both the Toddler and Casa levels, we will no longer offer a part-day option at any of our locations. Current parents of part-day students are already aware of this shift, as well as any new applicant families for September 2024.

We have heard your input regarding using the Parent Portal for classroom communications. For this reason, we will introduce a new tool for you. We’re partnering with Digistorm, who works closely with schools of all sizes to develop user-friendly apps and digital solutions. This app will replace our third-party text messaging service as well as the communications tools of the Parent Portal, including the ability to report absences! We expect to launch the app as part of our emailed August information package. Stay tuned for more details.

You bet! We are constantly reviewing our physical plans to make sure we are not only maintaining our grounds, but also improving them and making sure we are compliant with different sets of regulations.

With our ongoing commitment to accessibility, the Oxford St. building will have a lift elevator installed this summer. More information on this project will be shared with our Oxford families in the spring, as we expect the drop-off and pick-up routines to be modified for the start of the school year while the work is completed. We already know it will take longer than the summer break to complete. As we mentioned in our 2022-2023 Annual Report in the fall, we are grateful recipients of a $100,000 grant from the Government of Canada’s Enabling Accessibility Fund once again this year. This funding will partially fund the installation of the lift elevator at our Oxford location. Funding partnerships like these are critical in helping us move towards our goal of making our school buildings barrier free.

We also have some small internal improvement plans for our Westmount location including the Toddler outdoor space. At Elementary, there will be some turf repair work to complete on the courtyard, as well as hopes to install a very large shade sail in order to extend the opportunities for use of this space. Part of this work will potentially be completed over March Break if the winter cooperates and if not, the completion of the project will happen in the summer.

Due to the work happening at the Oxford St. building and potentially the Elementary courtyard, in addition to the staffing required, our Casa Camp Discovery program will not be offered this summer. We understand this may be disappointing to some of our Casa families and wanted to share this information early in the year to allow time to plan for other summer camp opportunities. The admin team is compiling a list of age-appropriate summer camps for our Casa families. At this time, we do not know whether it will be offered in the future, due to staffing requirements. We hope to offer a two-week summer camp for current Lower Elementary students; we are still in the planning stages and will share more details once they are confirmed.

We will continue to provide our Toddler Camp Discovery, as it is essentially an extension of their school year. Registration will open March 1 to current MA families and priority registration is provided to Toddler students who are returning to our programs in the fall.

If you made it this far in one sitting, way to go! That was a lot for you to digest, so thank you for taking the time to read it all. As always, if you have any further questions about any of our upcoming plans or school processes, please don’t hesitate to call the main office and we will be sure to connect you to the right person to support you.

We have so much to look forward to in the back half of the school year and we can’t wait to share in all the fantastic experiences with our MA-zing community.

With gratitude,

Tina Brown

Executive Director