Happy Friday, everyone.
w I’m tremendously passionate about bringing the method to as many children as possible. I’m grateful to have found Montessori as a young adult and to have had the opportunity to spend the past several years of my adult life in the never-ending process of development and growth as part of the Higher Ground and Guidepost Montessori community.
Shortly after graduating high school, I started working as a floater at a Montessori school that, at the time, I presumed was just an ordinary daycare. Before long, however, I realized that there was something unique and incredible about the Montessori approach. I can still remember observing two 4-year-olds in my class using the “Peace Rose” to resolve a conflict. I was so used to stepping in to mitigate disagreements, dictating what a “fair” outcome would be, but here were young children who, when given the right support, were capable enough to resolve a conflict independently.
My two years in training for a 3 to 6 Montessori diploma and my time as a guide were together a metamorphosis. This was no longer a job, but a passion on which I knew I wanted to focus my life’s work.
In 2017, I stepped into the role of Head of School at what is now Guidepost Montessori at Aldie. I got teary-eyed when I realized I was finally in a space where the children could have access to a garden right from their classroom door, and when I saw the tremendous care and attention guides had put into preparing their environments. I felt like I had won the lottery.
Meanwhile, something was nagging at me. I loved my school so much, and believed so deeply in the value of what we had to offer that I wanted it for every child and every family including those who, like me and my own family, would never have been able to afford a tuition-based Montessori program. To make that possible, I thought the public sector was the best avenue. So, I enrolled in grad school for a MEd in Education Policy and Leadership, with every intention of leaving Guidepost as soon as I had finished my degree.
In this program, I got to see firsthand the challenges my peers faced in the public sector. Almost all of my peers were working in public schools, and almost all of them were demoralized. They cared deeply about their students and families, but they were regularly discouraged by the barriers to giving individual students what they needed. They felt unsupported by their administration, and had the sense that school policies didn’t line up with the needs of students and their families.
In my second semester, COVID hit, and I got to see the challenges on a more personal level with my eldest child who was attending a public school at the time. When her school closed, I heard almost nothing. Her teacher apologized profusely once classes started again, but said that because the district hadn’t yet figured out solutions that would allow equitable access to virtual learning, teachers had been told not to work with any students at all.
Meanwhile, at Guidepost, I was invigorated by the work we were doing to be able to act quickly, make the best of a hard situation, and support all our children and families. Our campus was fully closed for only two weeks, but even before we re-opened our doors to provide in-person programming for the children of essential workers, we had already gone online with all our children.
Instead of trying to create a one-size-fits-all solution, we looked at each family as unique, and we were able to help in the cases where someone didn’t have the tools they needed to thrive online. I was tremendously grateful that we didn’t wait to provide programming until we had a perfect system. We rolled things out immediately and kept listening to families and guides and iterating based on what we learned.
I’m still in awe of the speed with which we were able to get our curriculum onto Altitude, develop resources for virtual guides, build our Guidepost at Home platform, and do so much more to serve our community. I appreciated more than ever that, as an organization, we were willing to try anything we thought might help us better support our community and the children we serve. This is part of our DNA, but I felt it so much more clearly during COVID than I ever had.
By the time I graduated in 2021, I had abandoned all plans to leave the private sector. It was clearer to me than ever that, at Guidepost, we were doing something extraordinary, and that trying to do Montessori in a public system that needs to be rebuilt from the ground up was not what I wanted. I was now one thousand percent sure that Higher Ground was where I wanted to be.
With this realization came the desire to take on new and greater challenges. After a long process of reflection, discussion, and a number of interviews, I found my way to the Regional Manager role. The opportunity to help drive the success of not just one, but many Guidepost schools has been among the greatest honors of my life. There's still quite a bit of development I know I’ll do in this role and beyond, but I'm grateful every day to be able to take part in the development of our work across an entire region even as I continue to grow myself.
As a guide, a Head of School, and a Guidepost parent, I’ve seen the value of a high-quality Montessori education, and I just can't stop until I’ve shared it with as many families as possible. And I’m glad to be doing it in a place a place where a deeply passionate, mission-driven group of Montessorians wakes up every day ready to meet whatever challenges we find and to discover new ways to expand access to this incredible method of education.
Thanks for letting me share my story, and enjoy your weekends,
Melissa Bays
Regional Manager, Guidepost Montessori
Melissa, I am so glad you decided to stay! "Instead of trying to create a one-size-fits-all solution, we looked at each family as unique, and we were able to help in the cases where someone didn’t have the tools they needed to thrive online. I was tremendously grateful that we didn’t wait to provide programming until we had a perfect system. We rolled things out immediately and kept listening to families and guides and iterating based on what we learned." I could not agree more. Thank you for sharing this with us!