Montessori Mastery adds electives, basketball
Dec. 9—Montessori Mastery School of Odessa has added JV and high school basketball, photography and American Sign Language this year.
It's also continuing its popular theater program, taught by Kaylee Cerda, field trips for fourth through 12th grades and visits from area museums and organizations for the prekindergarten through third grade classes.
And as with schools statewide, Montessori Mastery is increasing security by installing a key card system.
The school currently has 135 students in prekindergarten through 12th grade partly in St. Andrews Cumberland Presbyterian Church and a portable building where high school math and science is taught.
Randy McGuire, who is the school's co-director with his wife, Gloria, said they are not connected with the church, but are thankful for the space.
"We're at the 135. We physically don't have room for any more," McGuire said.
The hope has been that philanthropy will come their way to help them implement plans for the future.
"We have already have plans in mind; what our vision would be if we could have a school built; just so much that we could do; so much more," he said.
Photography instructor Beckwith Thompson is teaching photography. She had been an adjunct professor at Odessa College.
"There is a difference between teaching 30 years of studio classes three hours a day, twice a week for a set group of people that are older. I taught from 17 to 70, but having a whole group of teenagers has thrown me for a loop a few times. But the way we've set it at this point, it's pass/fail. So there's no homework, no grading and that's always nice. But I'm trying to figure out what they want and then how I can do it in an hour once a week, as opposed to three hours twice a week for 16 weeks," Thompson said.
They are using digital cameras. Her husband, Steve Goff, gave a demonstration on Snapseed, a photo editing application.
McGuire said Thompson reached out to Montessori Mastery about offering photography.
"She reached out to me, actually pre-COVID, and we were going to get something going and didn't. She was just wanting to get beyond college, and again, get involved with the younger people and we've been able to make a place," McGuire said.
He added that more students will be joining after the first of the year.
"One thing we have is a lot of flexibility. That's what we want. We want different for our students. ... If you're a private school, I mean obviously we're in competition but beyond that, what is what is good for our students, what do they want?" McGuire said.
Before they brought Thompson on board, McGuire said they asked students if photography was something they wanted.
"We try to be student driven. This is one thing that our accreditation organization, Cognia, wants when they're doing their surveys of the schools is is there a student voice and what you do. That's what we want. In fact, we do theater twice a week now rather than music and theatre. (We) didn't find a person that we felt was suitable to do music for us, but we doubled up on theater because the kids love it," McGuire said.
On security, he said they follow the guidelines as an accredited school.
"We did not have to do the doors. We got a grant from Betenbough for something else that we had in mind and we just dedicated that whole grant to the security system. Not that we've ever had a problem here, but we're trying to be proactive and make sure that we don't have a problem here by having the doors like this," he added.
McGuire said Montessori Mastery has children on the spectrum, ADD/ADHD and dyslexia.
On basketball, McGuire said a parent started the high school team two years ago and it's grown into JV.
"We have both boys and girls playing on the teams. It's not restricted to that. We play other local private schools," McGuire said.
He added that's the response has been great.
"The challenge has been, again, with our facility that we're able to rent. Some other churches make their gyms available and they rent those on Saturday to practice," McGuire said.
