Dear parents and prospective parents,

     Golden Oak Montessori School is a promise to you that your child can be a student whose teachers trust her to make significant choices about her learning.  The child will forge the details about how she works, about how she interacts with her peers and teachers, about pursuing her interests, about ways she can give back to her community, about participating in sports, drama and musical activities, about eating well and honoring her health.

     Your child knows how to learn and he does it with an eagerness that is motivated by the love of learning.  Golden Oak is the promise of a school environment that will inspire your child through hands-on learning and through the guidance of teachers who provide choices for children within developmentally appropriate limits.

     Golden Oak provides your child with curricula that uses comparative studies of the histories of civilizations, the vital needs of plants and animals and the scientific processes that show how we are all connected physically, intellectually, and socially.  A compelling drama unfolds as the children creatively demonstrate to each other and their teachers what they have learned.

     So often we make a celebratory cake from a mix and forgo the step-by-step process of creating it from scratch.  Golden Oak teachers know the value of creating from scratch, whether it is writing a class play collaboratively and making the costumes or searching one’s mind for the questions that beg to be answered rather than answering someone else’s questions or co-opting someone else’s play.  Authenticity is vital to a child’s learning.

     Join me and the Golden Oak community in building a center of learning for your child and our community.  Come with your tools and we will put you to work in creating an exemplary place for your child to live and learn.

     Your child’s education at Golden Oak Montessori School will be a personal experience of learning that s/he will remember and build on for a lifetime.

Deirdre Fennessy

Head of Golden Oak Montessori School

Deirdre Fennessy has more than twenty years experience in teaching and administration in Montessori schools. She has her 6-9 and 9-12 American Montessori Society teaching certification from the Center for Montessori Teacher Education, New York. Deirdre taught 9-12 students for eight years at the Whitby School in CT and was the Director of Admissions and Parent relations for four years. She has been the Head of two Montessori schools, Kamuela Montessori School in Hawaii and The Children’s Center at Burke in NY. She comes to Golden Oak Montessori from her most recent position as Associate Director of the Center for Montessori Teacher Education, NY.

Deirdre received her BA from New College, Sarasota , FL and her Masters in Education from Heritage College in Toppenish, WA.