Greenspring Montessori School Strategic Direction
A Lens to Reflect
Greenspring Montessori School’s Strategic Direction provides a lens for everyone in the community to reflect and focus our efforts to better the school community, even during this challenging time in our lives and in the School’s history. In partnership with every member of our community, the School will increasingly become a better version of itself over the coming years.
Click on the links and scroll through the page below to see our Strategic Direction in more detail.
Mark Berman
Chair of the Greenspring Montessori School Board
Strategic Direction 1
Inspire an Allegiance to Nature
Cultivate an environment where children build an allegiance to natural spaces with an awareness of how their actions can impact climate change. Young people are nurtured to respect nature and value sustainability. Staff educate and serve as role models.
What does this look like at Greenspring?
- Develop Outdoor curriculum with our Naturalists (2023 – ongoing).
- Create a Green School Committee of faculty and staff (2022 – ongoing).
- Offer staff professional development from regional naturalists to understand the native plants and wildlife on our campus (2022 – ongoing).
- Facilitate annual outdoor overnight trips for Upper Elementary and Adolescents (ongoing).
- Began offering outdoor sit spots for our children to observe and regulate themselves daily (2023 – ongoing).
- Became a Certified Maryland Green School (Completed 2023).
- Partnered with a landscape architect to create a comprehensive outdoor plan for the community (2019 – 2023).
- Invested in Outdoor Environments with the construction of decks and purchase of weather-resistant materials (2020 – 2021).
Right image: Adolescents pick fruit directly from the natural landscape on their fall Odyssey (2021).
Recent Highlights
Grand Opening of our new Montessori Nature Center
We are excited to announce the grand opening of our Greenspring Nature Center! Come take a peek and meet some of our critters during our Spring Showcase on Friday, June 2nd from 3:00-5:00pm.We created the Nature Center as an extension of our outdoor learning...
Nature Education in our Classrooms
As part of our allegiance to nature, Greenspring Montessori School emphasizes nature and outdoor education for all of our children. We have enjoyed seeing all of this work in the classrooms and outdoor environments this spring - from our youngest toddlers to our...
Earth Day Celebrations at Greenspring
This month our community celebrated Earth Day with two special campus-wide events! First, we had a visit from Irvine Nature Center presenting Nature in the Classroom: All About Animals. We also hosted a special Grounds Day to spruce up our campus. Some of our big...
Strategic Direction 2
Cultivate a community of ownership, empowerment, and human-centered values
Human-centered values empower community members to practice and embody ownership and trust so that each member – students, families, and staff members – live in a community built around and for its people.
What does this look like at Greenspring?
- Operationalize our staff values to create a structure within our community (ongoing).
- Build a peer coaching community among the staff (ongoing).
- Engage the Board of Trustees in meaningful ways on and off campus (ongoing).
- Offer complimentary wellness and community-building activities to staff including yoga, pickleball, book club, and social outings (ongoing).
- Foster engagement and belonging using Human-Centered Design (ongoing).
Left image: Staff create a space for ownership and empowerment during a faculty meeting (2019).
What is Human-Centered Design?
Human-centered design is an approach to problem-solving based on a philosophy that empowers an individual or team to design products, services, systems, and experiences that address the core needs of those it serves.
Human-centered design consists of three phases. In the Inspiration Phase you’ll learn directly from the people you’re designing for as you immerse yourself in their lives and come to deeply understand their needs. In the Ideation Phase you’ll make sense of what you learned, identify opportunities for design, and prototype possible solutions. And in the Implementation Phase you’ll bring your solution to life.
Strategic Direction 3
Elevate student self-construction through diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging
Our students must self-construct into advocates and leaders that can stand for all of humanity. To that end, it is critical that we offer an environment that embraces the important work of DEIB.
What does this look like at Greenspring?
- Adhere to clear values as a school community (2022 – ongoing).
- Offer Professional Development for all staff in anti-bias education (ongoing).
- Invest in anti-bias resources for our classrooms and Library (ongoing).
- Create alignment between classrooms and levels with anti-bias curriculum with a meaningful representation of all identities and family structures through books and classroom resources (ongoing).
- Hired an Equity and Belonging Coordinator (2023).
Right image: Children’s House students parade the campus with handmade flags on International Flag Day (2021).
Recent Highlights
Encouraging Conversations for Belonging
This year, the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB) Committee had an ambitious goal of creating lessons and resources for global holidays and cultural celebrations. The Committee strives to create thoughtful and authentic resources for our Guides without...
Meet the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee
The Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Parent Committee The Greenspring Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee (the Committee) formed organically last year as a small but rapidly-growing group of parents, staff, and guides having conversations to support each other...
Greenspring Awarded the Ursula Thrush Peace Seed Grant
The American Montessori Society Peace Committee has awarded the Ursula Thrush Peace Seed Grant to Greenspring Montessori School and a partnering parent group to fund a project that promotes peace education. This grant was created by the American Montessori Society...
Strategic Direction 4
Develop effective communicators for a new era.
We build actively engaged listeners and effective writers and speakers. Our students will express themselves in the language and embrace the means of a new era.
What does this look like at Greenspring?
- Document the Spanish and Dual Language curriculum in our Curriculum Guide (2024 – ongoing).
- Grow our Dual Language community with a commitment to supporting our Spanish-speaking staff (ongoing).
- Visited sister school Lancaster Montessori in Mérida, Mexico for our inaugural capstone Adolescent trip (2024).
- Implemented a new model for Dual Language Classrooms focusing on expressive Spanish language (ongoing).
- Launched a Sister School Committee to explore an international Montessori school partnership for the benefit of our students, families, and staff (2022 – 2024).
Left image: A Lower Elementary student works in the school Media Lab.
“Effective communication is as much about listening as it is about expression.”
– Greenspring Faculty Member
Strategic Direction 5
Enhance our campus to support continued growth.
Find opportunities to use and expand the campus to further realize our educational vision. Enrich our grounds and create venerated spaces to embody our Montessori principles of environmental respect and holistic education.
What does this look like at Greenspring?
- Launch the Capital Campaign for the Campus Outdoor Plan (2024-25).
- Completed the Campus Outdoor Plan and began to implement sections of the design (2022 – 2023).
- Completed the Elementary Village and moved into three new classrooms (2022 – 2023).
Right image: A Children’s House classroom during the morning work cycle (2020).
Recent Highlights
March 2018 Capital Project Update
Our construction crews were able to make much progress with the Main Building over the past two months. In December, we found out there was a massive fire in the 1930s that left smoke and fire damage to much of the roof, so workers have been tearing out damaged wood,...
December and January 2018 Capital Project Update
As the cold weather sets in, the construction crews stay hard at work restoring the Main Building at Greenspring Montessori School. Trenches have been cut in the concrete slab of the building in order to make way for new piping. Framing began on both floors, allowing...
November 2017 Capital Project Update
November brought great change to the Greenspring Montessori campus. Our new building, now named Emerson Village, was completed and our faculty and staff were eager to move in. Over Veteran’s Day weekend, an amazing crew of our staff and parent volunteers helped to...
Strategic Direction 6
Infuse authentic Montessori values in our community, the region, nation, and the world.
The world is our community. Greenspring accepts responsibility to grow into a national and global educational leader.
What does this look like at Greenspring?
- Produce the Voices in Montessori Podcast to share with Montessorians internationally (2022 – ongoing)
- Offer high-caliber professional development to schools through the Greenspring Center for Lifelong Learning (ongoing).
- Created a weekly mentoring series for new Guides and new Heads of Schools (2022 – 2024).
- Developed and built the Greenspring Center for Lifelong Learning (2022).
- Continue parenting workshops throughout the year for enrolled families and the greater community (2019 – ongoing).
Left image: Head of School, Tamara Sheesley Balis presents to Johns Hopkins School of Education graduate students as part of our outreach efforts (2019).
2023-24 Year in Review
Greenspring Center for Lifelong Learning
Want to learn more?
Contact us to learn more about our Strategic Direction and the big work happening at Greenspring Montessori School.
