Within this academic year our full staff has been offered the opportunity to attend two annual Montessori conferences that are hosted in Utah by the Utah Montessori Council. In addition, two weeks ago, twenty-two of our teachers and Administration team flew to Kiahwah Island, South Carolina to attend a national conference being hosted by M.E.P.I. (Montessori Educational Programs International).

The conference offered many classes for all program levels as well as Administration. Some examples of classes were – Common Sense Parenting, Preparation of the Environment, Cosmic Education, Labyrinths for Beginners, Celebrating International Diversity through United Nations, and Peace off the Table. Please see details of the wonderful Keynote Speaker, Barbara Coloroso. Our staff always come away from the conferences inspired and excited to implement their new knowledge into their curriculum.

We all stayed in two beautiful houses on Kiawah Island that were located beside each other overlooking a pond in which lived two resident American alligators. We find that a great benefit of these out of state conferences is that we all grow to know each other on a more intimate level and that builds a stronger community and unification of each program and curriculum.

On the last day, some of our staff chose to stay later on the Sunday to give us a chance to explore a little of the city of Charleston. What a fascinating city filled to the brim with so much early American history. We all wished that we had had more time to explore and many of us plan to return to visit this area again.

For those of us who were fortunate enough to visit Charleston, we had one little glitch in our schedule. A major storm hit the south-east that afternoon and our plane out of Charleston en route to Charlotte was delayed and we missed our connection to Salt Lake City. Fortunately for us, our teachers who returned earlier along with eight substitutes were able to cover the missing staff.

And one other unfortunate event was that when the staff who were returning home on the very early morning flight were preparing to leave, one of our Early Childhood staff fell down some stairs and ended up breaking one ankle in three places and spraining the other ankle. She is currently recuperating at home and we are grateful to all of you who have signed up to provide meals.

All in all, we had a wonderful educational adventure and this was partly made possible from the funds raised for the Teacher Education Fund over the past two years. Our sincere thanks to all of you and your support of the Montessori philosophy and education for your students.