Board President, Frank Grossman, likes to say that we’re 1/10th of the way to being a 100-year-old school. As part of the path to get to 100 years, we are working on updating our strategic plan. On a Thursday night in October, 25 community members were led by new board member Melinda Willis in a planning session called “10 Years in. 10 Years out.” The idea was to have staff, faculty, board, and parents consider what was most important for the strategic planning committee to focus on.
It was a fascinating process. Melinda started by having us conduct a SWOT analysis, where each of us considered what were the school’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. We wrote down each point on separate post it notes and started sticking them to the walls in thematic categories. Imagine a room full of people staring at post-it note covered walls, moving the notes about, conferring with others about what topics went together, and occasionally dashing across the room with a daisy chain of notes to put them in a more appropriate category. From there, the categories were summarized, each of us ranked our priorities, and we all came back together for a discussion where we identified 6 big categories as priorities. Pictures were taken of all the post-its so the strategic planning committee will get to see the SWOT analysis as well as being shown what the community’s priorities are. We were all very excited about what the future could hold for our school.
Below is an article by one of our Founders, Erin Moskun, about the almost accidental founding of a brand new school. As we look back at the founding having passed our 10th anniversary, it seems incredible how far we’ve come.
How Hard Can It Be?
It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. We were supposed to partner with another Montessori school, its headmaster eager to expand her program. We had a building with plenty of room to grow, allowing for several more years of education for our children. It was a perfect plan, until our partner backed out.
Jim and I sat with our friends Camille and Stew at an outdoor cafe, sharing appetizers and disappointment. What would we do now? We had both turned down other schooling opportunities for our eldest daughters for the coming fall. It was then that we had the bright idea. I remember all of us agreeing…”How hard can it be?”
We decided to go forward and open the school on our own. The renovation and zoning permits had already been acquired, so we formed a non-profit organization. Using every connection we could think of, we ordered materials, hired teachers, recruited families, renovated offices into classrooms, and created Hollis Montessori School.
That summer seems like a blur. So much was accomplished in so little time. We all took on things that we had no experience at: building shelving units, painting walls, creating lesson plans. There were endless hurdles to navigate, but our children were our motivation. We worked long days and into many nights. There was no time for home cooked dinners, so our kids ate more pizza that summer than ever before.
Here we are ten years later…a new campus, a growing student body, a full staff of trained teachers, and a school to be proud of. “How hard can it be?” Really hard! But looking at how many lives HMS has touched has made it all worth it.