Breaking Familiar Ground

 

MONTESSORI SCHOOL HONORS WHAT WORKS

As is so often the case at small schools and non-profits, Lauren Campbell wears almost as many hats as Bartholomew Cubbins in her overlapping responsibilities at Hilltop Montessori School in Brattleboro, Vermont. With a background in graphic design, this mother of two Hilltop alumni grew into the position of admission director as her children moved through the grades. Lauren produces all school publications, and spearheads marketing efforts. Her campus involvement extends through most school events.

“We are fortunate to have a strong Board,” Lauren explained during a break between sessions at inRESONANCE University (iRU) last May. “Our Board members are very event oriented. I support Board efforts, such as the auction, as much as I can, mostly through my relationship as a recent school parent.” The significance of Lauren’s connections becomes clearer with the awareness that Lauren’s husband, Kevin Campbell, assumed responsibilities as head of school at the same time Lauren stepped into admissions in 2003.

“There is an extraordinary group of adults at Hilltop Montessori,” Lauren emphasized. “The teachers are exceptional. It’s fun to be a part of this community. I have a sense, after attending iRU, that the environment at inRESONANCE is similar; you don’t find that everywhere.”

Hilltop Montessori, which enrolls 135 students from Preschool to Grade 8, has been a fixture in Brattleboro for 35 years, when a group of parents started the school as a way to provide their children with a quality education. The founders chose to focus on the principles developed by Maria Montessori nearly a century ago in Italy. “Purposeful and satisfying work, involving both body and mind, is what a Hilltop Montessori education is all about,” states the school web site. Montessori’s concepts, which center on independence and responsibility, remain at the heart of the school’s educational philosophy:
            • Mixed Age Classrooms
            • The Prepared Environment
            • Respect for the Child
            • Active Learning
            • Team Teaching

The challenge of admissions at this particular school is to keep enrollment growing even though the town demographics are fixed. “We have a low attrition rate, so we’re doing that right. ”

Admissions activity is consistent, Lauren offered. “We receive 200 inquiries per year for 30 available spaces. Hilltop Montessori School is well known, and we’re doing a better job every year of marketing the school. In our experience, many of our families begin their search knowing that ‘Montessori’ is their #1 criterion; they will find us. Then we have to make tuition for these early school years affordable: finances are the biggest factor limiting a family’s ability to consider independent school. Hilltop Montessori families are socio-economically diverse, so we have an ongoing need to create ample financial aid.”

 She continued, “We anticipate that our new school property will generate a lot of interest.”

In 2009, Hilltop will move to a new facility, designed and constructed to support the work of its students and teachers. Lauren’s enthusiasm is contagious. “There is so much change in the works. After 35 years in a rented space, Hilltop Montessori School has bought 43 acres of land near our current location and is about to break ground on a new school building. It’s thrilling to be a part of it.”

The shift to inRESONANCE solutions has been another leap forward.

“We installed PORTAL during the peak of our admission season this year, so I have not yet had enough time to develop a comprehensive overview. Nevertheless, I do feel more fluid in my use of PORTAL for what I do already: running reports for the Head of School on admissions activity, interviews, parent visits and scheduling appointments. It was helpful to attend iRU. The training filled in some of the gaps for me. I feel more efficient, more confident since iRU.

“At Hilltop, we are also using PORTAL for some registrar functions: tracking enrollment in sports, the after-school program, and Pizza Lunch Fridays. We generate lists for classroom teachers, the business office, parents. Everybody wants lists! I manage registration for the SummerFun Program. I did not want to mingle that data with our admissions data, so I created my own database for the summer program. My training at iRU in the spring helped me to do that.”

In addition to installing PORTAL, Hilltop’s development office is now running GENERATIONS to manage the general fundraising campaign.

“The school was using FileMaker databases before we installed PORTAL and GENERATIONS, so we were able to use them right away. It was a very positive transition; the training went smoothly. What we discovered is this: the whole structure of PORTAL is much more clearly mapped out, much more carefully planned than the data base we had built ourselves. Now the data base is very clean. In the one we built ourselves, we didn’t have this level of reporting. The reports that are in PORTAL are very good; I definitely will tweak them as my own skills improve.

"PORTAL makes a lot of sense. It’s as if somebody cleaned things up: you know where to find everything. Even better, PORTAL is always counting for you. It makes a huge difference to have reports at the touch of a button that reflect the cumulative totals of admission activity.”

Silhouetted against a window by the afternoon sun in the back of a meeting room at iRU, Lauren Campbell—who had, to this observer, been following the training at iRU without a hitch—alluded to the effort it takes to transition to a new data base: “I am not a computer person. This move to inRESONANCE has been a big leap. Happily, PORTAL has been very easy to learn.”

To learn more about Hilltop Montessori School, click here.