Amanda Bywaters joined us in 2021-22 as our Student Support Coordinator. During the first few weeks of this school year, Amanda will join each class, from infants to upper elementary, weekly to focus on Social/Emotional Learning lessons. You will get to read a snapshot of these lessons on Friday’s Montessori Compass activity reports. Amanda will continue to follow up and facilitate current and future Student Support Plans.
Amanda is a native Oregonian and grew up in Lake Oswego, Oregon. She was fortunate to work in the school district she attended as a child and focused on the area of Special Education for the Lake Oswego School district for 17 years, even working with some of her former teachers.
Amanda, her husband and two children decided to change scenery and move to Utah in November 2020. As lovers of the outdoors, they are all thriving here. Going on family hikes, skiing, enjoying local farmers markets and exploring new places are their favorite things to do together. Amanda also enjoys photography, making jewelry and crafting.
Amanda is inspired by the Montessori philosophy and is excited to be part of the Montessori team.
Within this academic year our full staff has been offered the opportunity to attend two annual Montessori conferences that are hosted in Utah by the Utah Montessori Council. In addition, two weeks ago, twenty-two of our teachers and Administration team flew to Kiahwah Island, South Carolina to attend a national conference being hosted by M.E.P.I. (Montessori Educational Programs International).
The conference offered many classes for all program levels as well as Administration. Some examples of classes were – Common Sense Parenting, Preparation of the Environment, Cosmic Education, Labyrinths for Beginners, Celebrating International Diversity through United Nations, and Peace off the Table. Please see details of the wonderful Keynote Speaker, Barbara Coloroso. Our staff always come away from the conferences inspired and excited to implement their new knowledge into their curriculum.
We all stayed in two beautiful houses on Kiawah Island that were located beside each other overlooking a pond in which lived two resident American alligators. We find that a great benefit of these out of state conferences is that we all grow to know each other on a more intimate level and that builds a stronger community and unification of each program and curriculum.
On the last day, some of our staff chose to stay later on the Sunday to give us a chance to explore a little of the city of Charleston. What a fascinating city filled to the brim with so much early American history. We all wished that we had had more time to explore and many of us plan to return to visit this area again.
For those of us who were fortunate enough to visit Charleston, we had one little glitch in our schedule. A major storm hit the south-east that afternoon and our plane out of Charleston en route to Charlotte was delayed and we missed our connection to Salt Lake City. Fortunately for us, our teachers who returned earlier along with eight substitutes were able to cover the missing staff.
And one other unfortunate event was that when the staff who were returning home on the very early morning flight were preparing to leave, one of our Early Childhood staff fell down some stairs and ended up breaking one ankle in three places and spraining the other ankle. She is currently recuperating at home and we are grateful to all of you who have signed up to provide meals.
All in all, we had a wonderful educational adventure and this was partly made possible from the funds raised for the Teacher Education Fund over the past two years. Our sincere thanks to all of you and your support of the Montessori philosophy and education for your students.
