New Cheverly parents group aims to improve schools

Montessori expansion planned at Judith P. Hoyer

Region 2 Assistant Superintendent Oretha Bridgwaters is scheduled to attend that meeting.

One of the group founders, Don Tyler, sends his 5-year-old daughter, Fiona, to Judith P. Hoyer. Tyler said at first the meetings were people ‘‘dishing the dirt” but he said the group realized quickly that speculation and hearsay would not get the group anywhere.

‘‘We have two neighborhood schools in Cheverly and most of the people I know don’t send their kids to a school in Cheverly and that seemed really bizarre,” Tyler said.

Another of the group founders, Chad Clay, said the fact families send their children elsewhere is not the issue, but rather that they may be sending their children somewhere else because of a ‘‘real or perceived problem with area schools.”

Tyler said the schools have high quality teachers, but the parental frustration lies with trying to make changes in what parents deem the bureaucracy of the county school system.

‘‘There have been parents at our meetings that moved their kids to other schools,” Clay said. ‘‘Sometimes it’s as simple as their kid tested out into Talented and Gifted and there’s no TAG at Spellman or Hoyer,” Clay said. ‘‘If we identified a pattern in that, the next question we would address is if it’s possible to have the local program at our school.”

Spellman principal Ann Swann had no comment on possible reasons for a drop in enrollment and a loss of children to the private school system.

‘‘That’s a question for parents,” Swann said. ‘‘We have an excellent program. We have parents who volunteer at the school all the time. I have a parent volunteer right now.”

Interest in the town’s public education is beginning to grow after parents learned Judith P. Hoyer plans on expanding its Montessori education program to a K through 6 program. Tyler said many students living in Cheverly transfer to Seabrook’s Robert Goddard French Immersion Montessori School. Currently, Hoyer has a mixed Pre-k and Kindergarten Montessori class.

‘‘Our purpose was to build that enrollment so that will be up next year,” Bridgwaters said. ‘‘I think that will be a wonderful situation for those children and hopefully we can pull those children from the private school back to us.”

According to the Web site for the International Montessori Index, Montessori education is characterized with class sizes of 30 students containing students as young as three and as old as six grouped together with uninterrupted three-hour periods of work time not necessarily confined to a student desk.

Tyler said there are as many as 800 children across the county on the waitlist to get into Robert Goddard, and getting to there from Cheverly and back is a long bus ride. Parent Kathy Browning said she is interested in the expansion and the opportunity to send her 4-year-old daughter, Mikaela, to Hoyer.

‘‘My daughter is in a good position to get into that one,” Browning said. ‘‘I’m excited there are this many people interested in working together to make the schools better.”

Chad Clay is working on bylaws for the group and a fundraising raffle is planned for the Cheverly Day Dance in May. No positions such as a secretary or treasurer have been formed yet and members who want to be in leadership positions are considered ‘‘co-chairs.” Tyler said the group decided that what makes a good community school is access to academic resources, a safe and orderly environment and bringing in the expertise of the residents who live there.

‘‘Residents in the neighborhood are architects, art teachers, reading specialists,” Tyler said. ‘‘As all communities do, there’s a wealth of knowledge in the community. It seems like a waste if we don’t offer it to the school. We’re trying to help create that avenue.”

Claudia Payne, PTA president at Spellman said she attended two meetings and said that the group seems organized and could serve as a database for parents who are trying to navigate the public school system and become aware of their private school options if they choose to go that route.

‘‘Do I think they’re going to have any impact? That remains to be seen,” Payne said. ‘‘I have hope. To get Bridgwaters involved, I hope they can effect some sort of change. And Miss Bridgwaters has been very good at keeping in touch with people and trying to listen to people’s concerns, which wasn’t the case in any of her predecessors in what I could see.”