First State Montessori Academy opened its doors in 2014 with the mission to create successful, contributing, life-long learners in a Montessori public educational program for students in Kindergarten through 8th grade. First State Montessori Academy provides parents and students with an authentic, time-tested, Montessori education in a public school. Over the past 5 years since our opening, we have been extremely strategic in our growth. Our original charter was approved for Kindergarten through 6th grade and in December of 2015, we applied for a major modification to increase our enrollment by over 15%, to add 7th and 8th grade and to add a second facility to add the space needed for the increase enrollment.
FSMA will continue with our plan which will create a full middle school program. This will allow for students at the younger grades to naturally flow into our 7th and 8th grade and thus creating a “full” school that has the enrollment numbers proposed in our most recent modification. In order to create an effective middle school program this grant has been awarded to allow the following activities to occur – renovation of the space that will be used for middle school (completed this summer), obtaining curriculum materials for major subject areas and electives to ensure students have access to high quality instruction in all courses, acquiring supplies – furniture, technology and instructional supplies needed for new classrooms, and professional development for all middle school teachers to have Montessori certification.
Check out the press release from the Delaware Department of Education for more information:
https://www.doe.k12.de.us/site/default.aspx?PageType=3&DomainID=4&ModuleInstanceID=20&ViewID=6446EE88-D30C-497E-9316-3F8874B3E108&RenderLoc=0&FlexDataID=23956&PageID=1