Stories

Visitors to our Montessori early school at Charlotte Prep always remark about the beautifully organized classrooms and the calm, soothing atmosphere. Creating this kind of setting is a central component of the Montessori education called the “prepared environment.”

As we head into the new year, I am thinking about the importance of fresh starts. Childhood is really just a succession of fresh starts.

This fall, Prep hosted two high school fairs, giving our middle school students the opportunity to meet admissions representatives and prepare for the next chapter in their education.

One of the signature features of our school is its size. At around 400 students, we are not too small or large.

Here at Prep, we dedicate time each day to Social Emotional Learning (SEL) and weave the skills into our academic work. Here are some strategies parents can use to build and reinforce SEL skills at home.

I believe people choose to be unethical because they think it will somehow benefit them. But unethical behavior almost always leads to psychological or emotional distress and ruin; it is an inherently selfish and self-destructive act.

One of our teachers, Laura Torres, generously shared her culture with students in her early school classroom during National Hispanic Heritage Month.

The famed educational philosopher John Dewey wrote, “we do not learn from experience; we learn from reflecting on experience.” This is an important distinction, especially for a school like ours that values experiential education.

Charlotte Prep is a place where people love to be, whether that’s our students who don’t want to leave at the end of the day or teachers who come back year after year. No one represents that better than Ms. Mary Ann Pater, who has been a teaching assistant in our lower school for a remarkable 27 years!

When parents ask me how they know their children are having a positive experience in school, I ask them a simple question: are your children joyful going to and experiencing school?