This conversation started 2 years ago, when I ran into Kelly McMahon at a summer conference. Kelly’s a kindergarten teacher at Hoover Community School in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and I was curious about what that label “community school” means in practice for teachers, students, and the community served by this new model for the area.

I’ve since learned that just because your kids attend Ames Community School District, for example, that doesn’t mean they attend a “community school.” Kelly put me in touch with Dave Greenberg and Angelia Ebner, senior policy analysts and community schools program specialists at the National Education Association, who have helped build and support thousands of community schools, as Angelia described it, from “coast to coast and border to border.”

And no exploration of the community schools model could be complete without including the story of Sustainable Community Schools in Chicago. Just last year, Major Brandon Johnson announced a near doubling of the number of community schools in the city, bringing the number to 36.

I spoke with foundational community organizer, advocate, and elected Chicago Public Schools Board Member, Jitu Brown, about how organizing for Sustainable Community Schools defused the push by elected officials for school closures, privatization, and charter-ization of Chicago Public Schools. For Jitu, the title of School Board member may be new, but he is Chicago born and raised, and he’s been organizing around education and all of its related issues since the 90s.

While there were just hundreds of community schools in the United States 15 years ago, today there are over 5,000 and growing in nearly every state in the nation. A consistent refrain from every person I spoke with for this episode was that community schools are the future of public education and the alternative to narratives about “failing public schools” that favor privatization as a solution.

NEA - What are community schools?

NEA - 5 Steps to Kickstarting Community Schools in Your District

NEA Community School Measurement Guidance Tool

Chicago Sustainable Community Schools

Eve Ewing - Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago's South Side

You can read out directly to Angelia & Dave @ NEA:

aebner@nea.org | DGreenberg@nea.org

Montessori schools are some of the few that wear their pedagogy on their signage: Cottontail Creek Montessori School. Montessori Children’s House. Acappella Montessori. (just to name a few of the dozen or so in Iowa). While the majority are private schools, there’s a growing number of public Montessori schools and programs as well. I think because of these two factors, being largely private and one of the only public-facing pedagogies around, you don’t necessarily have to be acquainted with the Montessori method to develop an opinion about it.

We recorded this in two sessions, one with Andrew Faulstich – Director of Education at Oneness Family School and co-founder of Developing Education – and Dr Ayize Sabater, school founder, co-founder of the Black Montessori Education Fund, and former Executive Director of Association Montessori International-USA. And a second session with Kelly Jonelis, Montessori Adolescent Program Director, Math Specialist, and Co-Founder of Developing Education.

In this episode you’ll hear the journeys that brought them to Montessori education, what Montessori is and is not, and what otherwise “mainstream” education can learn from the ideas and practices first developed by Dr. Maria Montessori over 100 years ago.

Recommended Reading & Media List:

The Montessori Child: A Parent's Guide to Raising Capable Children with Creative Minds and Compassionate Hearts - Simone Davies & Junnifa Uzodike

Erica Maretti - The Best Weapon for Peace

Montessori - The Child and Adolescence

Montessori - Psychogeometry

Montessori - Citizen of the World

Montessori Potential - Paula Preschlack

Diverse Families, Desirable Schools - Mira Debs

Montessori - From Childhood to Adolescence

Montessori - Education and Peace

Breaking the Paradigm Podcast w/ Andrew Faulstitch

Breaking the Paradigm: You ARE Good at Math with Kelly Jonelis

Dr. Ayize Sabater - WPFW 89.3 DC #YouMustLearn, Thursdays 6pm - wpfwfm.org #YouMustLearn

This summer, HRP is reading Pedagogies of Collapse: A Hopeful Education for the End of the World As We Know It, by Ginie Servant-Miklos, and we’re inviting you to join us. Visit humanrestorationproject.org/book-club to sign up for our summer book club, where we'll meet to discuss the ideas and implications of Pedagogies of Collapse and be joined by the author, for a Q&A on July 31. I’ll include a link to the book in the show notes, which is available on Open Access through Bloomsbury. Hope to see you there!

Spring Break has officially sprung for so many schools across the country. Whether you’re a teacher, a parent, a student, or a combination of any of the above, we hope you have a well-deserved and restful break. We’ll be taking a break this week too and be back on April 18th with a deep dive into Montessori education with an incredible team of Montessori educators, Andrew Faulstitch, Dr. Ayize Sabater, and Kelly Jonelis. Here’s a quick preview, and see you back here in two weeks for the full episode.

HRP Book Club Sign-Up: https://www.humanrestorationproject.org/book-club

Read Pedagogies of Collapse for free through Open Access on Bloomsbury