Giving Compass' Take:

• Lexa Rijos and Jamie Roadman share their son's story of attending a public Montessori school in San Antonio, and the effects that integrated learning has on childhood development. 

• How is the Montessori learning environment different and beneficial for young students? How can it be replicated throughout public education? 

• Read about how the Bezos Day One Fund investment will go to preschools inspired by the Montessori model. 

When Lexa Rijos and Jamie Roadman bought a picture-perfect bungalow in San Antonio’s historic Highland Park neighborhood, they didn’t have kids and so didn’t think to investigate the local schools. Four years ago, when Santiago was born, that changed. The San Antonio Independent School District didn’t have a great reputation, so Rijos and Roadman imagined they would have to move away from their funky urban haunts or somehow find the money for private school tuition.

Rijos was investigating preschools and she was amazed to learn that Steele Montessori Academy was opening just down the street and enrolling children as young as 3. Now the couple walk their son to school every morning and go back often at night for school-wide family activities.

One of the things the family appreciates is the fact that Steele intentionally recruits and enrolls students whose families come from a range of income levels, as well as children with disabilities. Montessori’s methods were originally created to help develop self-regulation skills in children with intellectual or developmental delays. In Santiago’s mixed-age classroom, it’s impossible for visitors to tell which students receive special education services.

Steele is one of 31 dynamic and diverse-by-design schools that anchor San Antonio ISD’s plan to use a carefully calibrated combination of socioeconomic integration and school choice to break up concentrations of poverty in the district’s schools and ensure that when students graduate they are ready to go to college and stay until they earn a degree.

Read the full article about Montessori schools at The 74