starting a Montessori middle school

[OnTheBrink]

My daughter is at a Montessori school. This is her 3rd year. She's officially in Kindergarten. It's a charter school for K-5th, with ages 3 and 4 in the 3-6 room. The preschoolers (3&4) are officially in a private school (tuition) attached to our public charter school. Next year we will add 6th grade, but that's as far as our charter goes.

So - we want to have a Montessori middle school. Is anyone familiar with one in "real life"? Any great links? Information?

Anyone want to come and work for us???

Anything you can share would be awesome!

[Lillianna]

A great resource on this issue is NAMTA. They provide training for adults who work with adolescents, yearly conferences and colloquiums on this topic and an extremely helpful publication (the NAMTA journal) as well as a working Erdkinder and plans for M high school! The Director of NAMTA is a well published writer on adolescents and has established numerous middle schools. He established the middle school where I work (I am in Children's House) and it is a great program with camps, group trips, lots of community work, more of a city based erd but nothing like the true erdkindler ("children of the earth") they set up more recently with the working farm component - chickens, cows, produce, wetland management, beehives, maple syrup, etc., a bed and breakfast run by the students, and a really gorgeous and well equiped environment. http://montessori-namta.org
Also, you can read all NAMTA journals online at http://eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/Home.portal