A Weekly Digest of
Breakthrough Community News
November 14, 2017
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Breakthrough has recently executed an agreement to begin developing its new, permanent, location. We will be updating the community regularly on this page. Please see the first update below:
November 14, 2017
After many months of investigation and negotiation, we are excited to share a major milestone in Breakthrough’s effort to locate a permanent facility. On 11/06/2017 we signed an agreement to move forward with a new campus located at 6856 Eastern Avenue, NW. This new site will include approximately 41,000 square feet of indoor space, which, when fully built-out, will accommodate Breakthrough’s planned full enrollment of 405 children ages 3 through 12.
The new site also includes about 2000 square feet of green space, which will be developed into play areas and gardens. The newly renovated Takoma Playground and Park is a ten- minute walk (.5 mile), and the Takoma Metro is a seven-minute walk (.3 mile) from the school.
As in the past, we are working with Building Hope to develop the space. Breakthrough board member and expert Montessori architect David Bagnoli, AIA of Studio MB is leading the conceptual design of the school and site. He is currently working with a school-based design team to maximize the indoor and outdoor space opportunities. Design plans will be submitted for approval on December 7 of this year, with construction slated to begin in May.
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Public Montessori in Puerto Rico Needs Your Support
An Evening with Ana Maria Garcia Blanco
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 25 years ago, Ana Maria Garcia Blano founded the Instituto Nueva Escuela, a non-profit organization dedicated to transforming Puerto Rico's public education system through Montessori. INE has grown to support 50 public Montessori programs serving more than 12,000 children across the island , achieving 0% rates of school desertion, drug incidents, and severe violence in its schools in communities of extreme poverty.
This September, Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico and the Carribean, 30% of INE's schools suffered severe structural damage. The entire island is a Federal Disaster Area, and as of last week 80% of the territory is without power. INE has launched a fundraising and reconstruction campaign to rebuild its schools
Come join INE founder and Executive Director Ana Maria Garica Blanco
for an evening of inspiration and support
On November 29, the D.C. Montessori community will come together to learn more about the remarkable story of Montessori in Puerto Rico, to be inspired by Ana’s vision and fortitude, and to raise funds to support reconstruction efforts.
When: Wednesday, November 29 at 7PM.
Where: Latin American Montessori Bilingual Charter School
1375 Missouri Ave NW, Washington, DC 20011
Cost: No charge—Suggested Donation: $25
Donate Now:
Antrocket (INE's Puerto Rican crowdfunding campaign)
Puerto Rico Montessori2Montessori (GoFundMe)
RSVP to Katie Brown, NCMPS DC Coordinator
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This Week at Breakthrough
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Family Fall Harvest Potluck
Friday, November 17 at 6 pm
Please bring you a dish that reminds you of the fall season to share with our community. Please label your dish with the ingredients, as we have many allergies and dietary restrictions in our community. The potluck will begin at 6 pm after the end of extended day.
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Family Education: Sensorial - Rescheduled
Saturday, January 6 from 10 - 11:30 am
This session which was originally scheduled for Saturday, November 18th was rescheduled due to family feedback on the date. Please join us to learn about the sensorial material on the new date of Saturday, January 6th, 2018.
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Parent-Teacher Conferences
Parent Teacher Conferences will be on Monday and Tuesday, November 20-21. This is a great opportunity to sit down with your child's guide and talk about their progress so far and plan for the future. Please click here to sign up for a slot.
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Clothing Donations and Returns
We have almost entirely run out of extra clothing for our students who need a loan for an emergency change during the course of the day. If you have clothing that you can donate, or Breakthrough clothing at home waiting to be returned, we would appreciate the assistance in rebuilding our stock. We're looking for clothing from size 3T through size 6 or 7, especially pants. Thank you in advance for your help!
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Tour of Breakthrough's Classrooms
RESCHEDULED to Monday, November 20th at 10 am
A series of monthly tours led by Allison Jones, Child Study Lead. New and returning families interested in seeing the classrooms and participating in discussion about how we prepare our classroom environment for students are invited to attend. Please RSVP here to let us know when you plan to attend. The next session will be on Monday, December 4th at 4 pm.
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Equity Discussion
Monday, December 4 at 6 pm
A presentation on our equity statement of values, along with detailed information about how it has been implemented at Breakthrough and our vision for what it will look like in the future, followed by a discussion moderated by Jenn Roberts, founder of Versed Education Group. So that we can plan, please drop us a line here to let us know if you plan to attend.
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Coffee with Leadership Team
Our next session will take place on Wednesday, December 6. Please click here to let us know you plan to attend.
What is Montessori Elementary?
Thursday, December 7 at 6pm
This session is designed especially for families with five-year-old children. It will give you a taste of what to expect as your child prepares to transition to the Elementary Program. Please click here to let us know you plan to attend.
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What's Going on in This Classroom?
Our next session will take place on Wednesday, December 6 at 8:45 am. Please click here to let us know you plan to attend.
Holiday Performances
Friday, December 15 at 9 a.m.
Please come and see your child's class sing a song or recite a poem in a small performance, followed by a shared snack and gathering in the classroom. Look for more details in future bulletins.
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Extended Day Update
Breakthrough's partnership with Springboard will end on December 15th. Beginning January 3rd, Breakthrough will officially be starting our own aftercare program. Further details are coming soon about how the transition will occur. Thank you for your patience as we ensure that we bring a quality extended day program to the children of Breakthrough.
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Lunch Order Reminders
Please remember to order lunch for your child before the 15th of each month. In order to control food waste, we try very hard to order the correct number of lunches, so prompt orders are key. If your child is eating lunch at school and we have not received an order, we will send home an invoice. Please don’t hesitate to be in touch with Kamaria.
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Resources for Families
A few families have asked where they can get child-size equipment - brooms, dustpans, pitchers, other tools and activities of practical life that will complement your child's work in their classroom - for their home. Here are a few resources if you are also interested:
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Have you ever wondered why there is so much emphasis on pouring, washing, and scrubbing in the Primary Montessori program? Or how the Montessori language curriculum works? Or the origin of terms like “grace & courtesy,” “sensitive period,” or “cosmic education”? We will be fielding such questions and sharing our response with the entire Breakthrough Community. Send Us a Question
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Today's question is answered by Ebony Marshman, a founding Breakthrough faculty member, and guide in the Magnolia Community.
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The Breakthrough Charter talks a good deal about a commitment to serving all families with intentional respect for diversity and inclusion. How does this commitment play out in Breakthrough’s classrooms?
As a guide at Breakthrough, I find my work as it relates to diversity to be multifaceted. There is overlap in the work of fostering empathy in children, and teaching them to embrace and celebrate difference. When it comes to embracing difference, the lines can be fine between acknowledging and isolating what makes people’s experiences differ. Part of recognizing that someone may differ from you is also the realization that to that same person, you are the one who differs. At Breakthrough, our classrooms are intentionally inclusive meaning they are diverse; racially, ethnically, economically, and developmentally across ability level. In the Montessori pedagogy, the Primary child’s work of adaptation- becoming a person of their time and place- is critical to their growth and development. For our children at Breakthrough, this means becoming someone whose home is Washington D.C. in the mid 2010’s - with all of the complexity that entails.
Our school serves, and is served by people from all over the world, with differing stories to tell. While at school, diversity is the standard for your children. When it comes to upholding the positive impacts of diversity in our children’s lives, our role as adults is to empower children to recognize and embrace difference, while celebrating one another. Because we are practicing Montessori in at a school that serves people of many different backgrounds, it is the work of the Breakthrough staff to frequently question and consider the ways in which we adhere to the dominant culture of the United States, while maintaining that it is not done at the expense of our students, staff and families. Each of the five areas of the classroom, offer means of doing just this.
With this in mind, let’s consider the role of Practical Life in supporting the formation of functional independence in children. In the instance of promoting grooming habits, it is common for schools to make available fine-tooth combs for combing hair. Though it is great for children to feel empowered to care for their own hair, the use of a fine-tooth comb is not an option for many hair textures. A child’s inability to participate in that activity may reinforce negative messages society sends about what kind of hair grooming is acceptable, and can cause a child to question their sense of belonging.
The question diversity poses for those who consider it is: who is different (than me)? This natural centering of self emphasizes the visual component of recognizing diversity but also illuminates that diversity can look different to everyone. Still, ‘diverse’ as a designation is most often reserved for describing identities and practices that are considered counter to dominant culture. This implies that what is normal is sameness and portrays diversity as a novel concept. Your children are already observing differences in people’s appearance (even if not yet articulating it). As this is a crucial point as it relates to considering diversity in this society, young children are not too young for conversations that directly address race or skin color. In fact, research suggests that having these conversations are critical for children as they form their worldview. My practice is to be true and brief when discussing topics that could be regarded as too complex for children. Your children are more than capable of digesting various realities of our society than given credit for. What I am constantly reminded of when seeking to explain things to children, is that it is us, the adults, who overly complicate these things.
Montessori is an international curriculum and although high fidelity Montessori classrooms all over the world may feel familiar, they should differ to reflect the cultures of the children within them. In our classrooms our children see diversity all around them. Whether it be in the characters of the books displayed in our classroom libraries, or in the faces of their peers and teachers. At Breakthrough, diversity is upheld in the richness of the stories we tell, and the realization that we all protagonists in our own stories.
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