Montessori Day School Of Brooklyn has been educating young children in Brooklyn, NYC for over 25 years. Located in a diverse community, the school serves childres ages 2 through 6.

Montessori Day School Of Brooklyn is an independent school using hands-on classrooms in a stimulating environment with high teacher-student ratios.

There are six classrooms at MDS. Each class is led by three teachers.

Toddlers are taught together in groups of two and three year olds. The preschool-kindergarten classes are taught in mixed-age groups of children 3 through 6. Each class is taught using traditional Montessori methods where younger children learn from the older children. This helps to reinforce the lessons for older children as they learn by teaching.

Each month, parents receive a classroom calender so they can keep up with what their children are learning at school.

The full curriculum is enhanced by enrichment programs. Children learn Spanish, yoga, music and movement, and play sports such as soccer and swimming. Piano classes are also taught throughout the year.

Montessori Day School Of Brooklyn offers universal pre-k and vacation camps during mid-Winter break and Spring break.

If you are considering pre-kindergarten for your child at MDS you should read the article 21 Reasons to Enroll Your Child in Pre-k at MDS.

Tennessee was one of 10 states selected by Complete College America to equally share a $10 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to help public institutions guide and aid students to reduce the time it takes to get their degrees. Thirty-three states applied.

“Everybody that goes to a public college is subsidized. At some point in time, it becomes a question of how much should the taxpayers subsidize for people to explore while they’re in college,” Haslam said.

Haslam said that graduation rates don’t rise appreciably after six years on campus. “Our responsibility is to help make certain that people realize there is some urgency to complete, number one; and number two, that they see a path how to do that. A lot of students come to school and they know they want to major in something but they really don’t have the foresight and planning to know what all is required to get to that end goal, and I think this program can help that.”

The Tennessee Higher Education Commission will administer the grant in three components:

Expanding access to the “Adaptive Advising Tool,” a technology developed at Austin Peay State University to provide tailored course recommendations to students, based not just on degree requirements, but on likelihood of success in the course.

Developing tools for students and campuses to evaluate and award credit for prior learning, which should make it easier for older students to earn a college degree.

Funding for “completion academies” that will help Tennessee institutions develop new strategies for meeting their specific completion targets.

The state legislature in 2010 enacted the Complete College Tennessee Act which altered the state’s funding of public colleges and universities to include graduation rates and moving students along toward graduation.

Complete College America is a national nonprofit organization that works with states to boost college completion rates.

Members of the Mobile County school board – pictured here last fall touring Calcedeaver Elementary – said they think they will be able to build a new Calcedeaver in far northwest Mobile County.

CITRONELLE, Alabama — After months of pleading with the school board for improvements to their long-neglected schools, the people in and around Citronelle appear in line for some relief.

And the attendance zones of about a dozen elementary schools in Mobile and Prichard may soon be tweaked.

The Mobile County school board tentatively agreed during a retreat last week to build a new Calcedeaver Elementary school. Calcedeaver, between Citronelle and Mount Vernon in northwest Mobile County, between Citronelle and Mt. Vernon in northern Mobile County,mainly serves children of the MOWA Choctaw Indian tribe and has received top academic honors from the state.

The board said it would like to swap some funding sources plus build a new Whitley Elementary in Prichard smaller than originally planned to come up with about $8 million needed to rebuild Calcedeaver, which is in terrible shape and floods when it rains. The tribal council has offered to help the system find and acquire land for a new school close to the current site off Coy Smith Highway, officials said.

Wow. Prayers do come true. Dreams come true, said Calcedeaver Principal Jill Dickinson. You just cant explain the happiness and the joy. So many times this has been talked about, but they said they dont have the funding.

This is super, added John A. Byrd Sr., who is on the tribal council. Its been a long time coming and we appreciate the school board for considering it.

Board members toured Calcedeaver last fall as they worked to allocate about $18 million available from the state as a low-interest construction loan. Board members said Calcedeaver was in such bad shape that it needed to be replaced entirely. The state money, though, could be used only for renovations, so the board picked four other schools to fix instead.

Now, the board is getting $1.9 million more than expected as part of that state loan. It plans to move that money to renovations that are about to start at B.C. Rain High on Dauphin Island Parkway, freeing up money for Calcedeaver.

B.C. Rain will still get $15 million worth of renovations, mostly paid from federal stimulus dollars.

There is also some money left over from the construction of North Mobile County Middle and Dawes Intermediate schools, which opened last school year, that can be used.

And board members agreed that Whitley which has experienced declining enrollment as a result of the demolition of the Happy Hill public housing community could be built smaller, for about $8 million instead of the originally planned $10.5 million. Board members said they still need a new Whitley because they may send Prichard students there who will be displaced by Chickasaws planned split from the system.

Idea hatched during Grand Hotel retreat

The board came up with he complicated plan for Calcedeaver during a busy two-day retreat at the Marriott Grand Hotel Resort, Spa and Golf Club in Point Clear. They also decided to form committees to look into rezoning about a dozen elementary schools, including putting Jackson Heights in E.R. Dicksons district and possibly combining Spencer and Westlawn elementaries in midtown Mobile and moving Old Shell Road magnet into the current Spencer.

Board President Ken Megginson and member Reginald Crenshaw, who represent the Citronelle area, said they had met with members of that community who have expressed concerns about the condition of Calcedeaver, Lott Middle and Citronelle High to prioritize their needs. They decided that Calcedeaver is first.

Calcedeaver is a hodge-podge of small buildings. The plumbing and cafeteria are outdated. The school doesnt have the needed wiring for computers and other technology. And theres no gymnasium for physical education classes or assemblies.

Eventually, board members said, they would like to find some money to renovate Lott Middle to make it more comparable to other middle schools by adding science labs and possibly improving the band room. They said they would consider leasing the aging, blue wood building on the campus at a cheap price to the community rather than tearing it down.

Also, board members talked of the needs at Citronelle High, which has buildings from the 1910s and the 1930s. In some rooms, they said, if someone removes pieces of plywood over holes in the floor, the ground is visible.

Megginson said he feels confident that Calcedeaver will get a new school, though the board wont vote until September.

Its something thats badly needed, he said.

GRAND RAPIDS Grand Rapids Public Schools officials are looking at some grim numbers as they ponder aging schools in need of repair amid a decreasing student population, leaving three of its four high schools well below half their capacity.

That situation has caused leaders to both consider asking voters for a so-called sinking fund to pay for repairs, and raise the specter of closing Ottawa Hills High School.

The more immediate decision is whether to seek the sinking fund for $35 million in needed repairs at all of the districts building. The dilemma comes as the district faces a continuing budget crunch which could put it some $10 million in the hole by next school years end.

Another consideration is when to seek such a request given a number of local agencies, including Kent County are considering possible ballot requests next year.

Do we want to be at the end of that or do we want to be out first? Superintendent Bernard Taylor asked school board members this week. We have an immediate problem and no way to address it.

The district last asked voters for a tax increase supporting its facilities needs with a successful $165 million bond issue in 2004. That money is gone, along with one-time federal stimulus money that helped the district face a declining student population which has dropped about 7,000 students in the past decade to about 18,500 students this year.

A sinking fund is something whose time has come, school board member Jane Gietzen said. Administrators said nine other Kent County districts have sinking funds, prompting other board members to ask which districts have unsuccessfully asked voters to approve them.

Such a fund is a dedicated millage of no more than 5 mills for a maximum of 20 years levied to pay only for a limited range of basic infrastructure needs like electrical work and replacing roofs. They cannot be used for routine maintenance or new equipment.

They do, however, free up revenues for other expenses like general operations and maintenance, officials said. Taylor said the district could seek a sinking fund of a smaller amount for a shorter term than the maximum 20 years and that one could be leveraged to reduce any future bond request.

Officials said the roof at Ottawa Hills has been repaired so often it is now more cost effective to simply replace it. Masonry work at Central where capacity also stands at 32 percent are pegged at $1 million.

As for what could happen with Ottawa Hills, Taylor warned members of the Kent County Black Caucus attending a recent board meeting about the potential closing. An estimated 602 students are projected to attend classes next year in a building built for 1,868.

You need to prepare your community for that possibility, Taylor told them. This is not something the district wants to do, its something the district may have to do.

The district last updated its building improvement plan in 2007, a process which had community members recommending the district seek another bond issue for facilities. Those plans were taken off the table when the economy went sour in 2008.

Now, a task force charged with making recommendations on a number of issues, including how the district might better use its facilities and attract and retain students, is concentrating on more basic needs and whether the district still needs four high schools.

That group has formed no recommendations yet but members last month brainstormed ideas such as closing all of the districts four high schools and reopening them on a single campus.

When some board members suggested the district survey parents to find out why they move to suburban or private schools, Taylor said many districts across the country have experienced a racial tipping point from which they dont recover.

Because of who are in these schools, people believe this is not a place they want to be, Taylor said. Im happy with who we serve but if this is an obstacle for some people, thats their problem, not mine.

Britain’s biggest heads’ union said it would ballot members over a possible walk-out in the autumn amid mounting anger over changes to retirement funds.

If approved, it will be the first time the National Association of Head Teachers has taken strike action in its 114-year history.

The move comes just days after the National Union of Teachers and the Association of Teachers and Lecturers announced they would hold a coordinated one-day strike on June 30.

It is likely that the two classroom unions will also stage further walk-outs in the autumn alongside any proposed NAHT action, leading to the enforced closure of the majority of state schools in England and Wales.

Russell Hobby, NAHT general secretary, said: “With great reluctance, faced with threats and a refusal to negotiate from the government, we feel we have no option but to demonstrate our anger at this attack on the teaching profession.

“Like everyone else, teachers have paid the price for the recession in taxes and pay cuts. They are now also being taxed to pay for the mistakes of others.”

The NAHT represents 28,000 heads and deputy heads in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. It covers 85 per cent of primary schools and 40 per cent of secondaries.

The union’s ruling executive announced on Friday that it would ballot all members on proposed strike action.