Twas the night before the first day of the 2021 – 2022 school year. Teachers at the AMS-accredited member school, Greene Towne Montessori School (GTMS), were busy adding the finishing touches to their classrooms. They worked late into the evening creating cozy and inviting spaces, eager to welcome the children to their first day of school the very next morning.

Little did they know, Hurricane Ida had other plans.

Within just a few hours, flooding had completely demolished the school’s West Campus and had filled the basement of the East Campus. The West Campus, located just one block from the Schuylkill River, took on four and a half feet of water, destroying four classrooms and four office spaces. Classroom furniture, materials, equipment, and supplies were ruined. Although classrooms were spared at GTMS’s East Campus, the elevator and electrical systems were inoperable and a multitude of furniture, classroom materials, and supplies were lost due to flooding in the basement.

The entire school community was devastated. The carefully curated environments teachers worked so hard to prepare were destroyed. Students, faculty, and staff lost a space they held near and dear to their hearts. Several guides also lost their Montessori training albums, irreplaceable artifacts that undoubtedly become a part of a Montessorian’s identity. Past memories and the hopes of future ones created together as a community seemed to be gone forever.

A Temporary Home

Founded in 1966 by a group of parents, GTMS has a longstanding history as a tight knit community; the support and encouragement from current families, alumni parents, faculty, staff, and the greater Logan Square community in the days after the flooding was overwhelming. They donated funds, educational materials, and their time to ensure GTMS staff and students found a new home.

The East Campus was reopened for Primary classes and a new temporary location just ten minutes north was found to support three Toddler House classrooms and two All Day Montessori classrooms.

While the temporary space was a former school, it had been designed for high school students and needed quite a few modifications to be well-suited for toddler and primary-aged children. GTMS hosted community work days where parents and board members rolled up their sleeves to help staff paint, pick up donated and borrowed materials, and set up classroom environments.

Facilities director, David Hudson, fashioned and attached toddler-height stair railings and student bathrooms were all fitted with potty seats and steps and portable sinks to allow independent access for the children. The cafeteria became an indoor playspace for younger students, while older children had recess at nearby neighborhood parks and playgrounds.

GTMS had truly made this temporary space into a new home for students and staff.

The “Cozy Plan”

GTMS’s plan was to use this temporary space until their beautiful, unified new home was constructed, but they found themselves needing to pivot once again in January 2022 when the temporary property sold. Needing to vacate the temporary space by the end of the school year, GTMS staff realized they were going to need to fit everyone into their East Campus until construction of their new school was complete. They knew they needed to be creative and think outside the box!

Their solution was the “Cozy Plan.” This was a clever idea faculty and staff developed together where classrooms would come together to share spaces at the East Campus.

Though they found themselves in tight quarters, teaching teams and students made the most of their unique circumstances. Sarah Sweeney-Denham, head of school, shares, “In some ways, after the isolation of self-contained groupings during the height of the pandemic, coming together for the ‘Cozy Plan’ helped rebuild the community and allowed us to support one another in every way possible.”

A Beautiful, Unified New Home

With the expansion of their Toddler House and All Day Montessori programs, GTMS had had two campuses for nearly ten years. They had longed to have a unified campus for quite some time before finding themselves in this precarious position. What could have been viewed as such a devastating situation, GTMS used to their advantage, turning their long-time dream into a reality.

In preparation for such a dream, GTMS had already formed a Real Estate Task Force in 2019 to analyze the ideal space needed. The team kept a vigilant eye on potential locations in the Center City neighborhood. When the flood hit, GTMS made use of the space analysis immediately, gauging the space needs both for a temporary location and to renew their search for a permanent new home.

In a building just across the street, they found the perfect building that could house all of their classrooms and give them room to grow! GTMS knew they had found the new, unified home they had been dreaming of for so many years.

The new building had originally served as a high school and had been vacant after that for several years. At the time GTMS signed the lease, the entire space had been demoed to serve as a storefront and corporate headquarters in a deal that fell through. As Sweeney-Denham remarks, “This served as the perfect canvas for us to custom design a purpose-built space specifically for our needs.”

GTMS’s new home has large, light-filled classrooms. Movement rooms on each of the three floors enrich the school day program and provide ample space for extended enrichment classes after school and in the summer. Teachers are amazed at the impact their new building has had on their classroom culture, sharing that having more spacious environments has resulted in calmer, more peaceful classroom communities within which they can create schedules driven by students’ needs, rather than availability of space.

Students are also in awe of their beautiful, inviting new school space. When asked how they felt about the new school, kindergarteners had a lot to share. Ashwini notes, “It’s good! It’s big and there’s more space to move around.” Sylvie says, “It’s cool. It’s fun to explore and do new things. There’s an inside movement room and an art room.” Ishaani excitedly shares, “I like the classroom. I like the art room. I like the movement room. I like everything! Next year I’m going to Greene Towne for 1st grade.”

The final phase of GTMS’s construction project includes the completion of a four thousand square foot rooftop playdeck which they hope to open this summer. The playdeck will include a climber, dome jungle gyms, playhouses, and lots of planters and compost which students will tend. Sweeney-Denham was excited to add, “From the rooftop playdeck, you become part of the Philadelphia skyline, and the view includes trains, cranes, and automobiles!”

Kindergartener, Wyatt, is also excited about this new addition, remarking, “I like the new playdeck. I saw it when I was head of school for the day. It’s big! I can see our old school and I could see some buildings. I like everything about our new building.”

Future Plans for GTMS

This fall, GTMS will also launch their inaugural Lower Elementary classroom, providing an Elementary option for families from several area Primary Montessori schools.

In addition to expanding the ages of children they serve, GTMS is excited to have the opportunity to serve a greater number of children in their existing programs, keeping in line with their goal to grow a “racially, religiously, and economically integrated school.” Of the 162 students currently enrolled at GTMS, fifty-one percent are children of color (compared to fifty-six percent of the overall population in Philadelphia). Students and staff speak twenty-eight different languages and represent twenty-seven different zip codes and five different continents.

Sweeney-Denham notes, “One of the programs that has the largest demand and is distinctive to Greene Towne among preschool options in this area is our All Day Montessori program, which provides a consistent classroom community for children from 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM with Montessori trained teachers, all year round.” GTMS is thrilled to add another Toddler All Day Montessori classroom this fall and another Primary All Day Montessori classroom the following year to meet the needs of parents and students in the surrounding community.

In the coming year, GTMS also looks forward to expanding the work of their “outreach classroom” which hosts Montessori & Me child and caregiver Montessori playgroups. They will begin offering parent support groups, parent education workshops, and more.

In an effort to give back to the community for all of the support and encouragement they have received over the last few years, GTMS is also excited to host outside events. They look forward to making meeting spaces available for local organizations and families and are planning to join with other Montessori schools in the area to host a shared professional development day.

GTMS has endured a lot over the last few years, but their dedication to one another and to their school community has shined through. As Sweeney-Denham shares, “The grit and resilience of the staff were remarkable and the support and encouragement from current and alum parents and the greater community are still heartfelt and appreciated.” There is no doubt that there are incredible things on the horizon for GTMS as they continue their purposeful work as a community in their new, unified home!

About the Author

Heather White, EdS, is a Montessori coach and consultant, content creator, and educator for adult learners, as well as a moderator and manager for the Montessori at Home (0 – 3 years) Facebook group. Formerly, she was a Montessori teacher, in-home caregiver, Lower Elementary coordinator, and associate head of school. She also has experience as a school psychologist intern. She is AMS-credentialed (Early Childhood, Elementary I) and is a Nationally Certified School Psychologist (NCSP). Contact her at hpratt@stetson.edu.

The opinions expressed in Montessori Life are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the position of AMS.