Chaminade University of Honolulu

Montessori Life, Winter 2004 by Bogart, Louise

Starting a school presents many challenges. Starting a school within a university setting is an adventure! What follows is the saga of one university's journey to get a Montessori lab school on campus.

Chaminade University of Honolulu is a small, Marianist Catholic liberal arts university with very limited resources. Like many small private colleges, it is tuition driven. Unlike many small private colleges, Chaminade exists in an environment in which having a tuition comparable to that of similar schools on the mainland is not an option-if it expects to survive. Add to this mix an early childhood degree program in a state that requires only a Child Development Associate (CDA) credential for head teachers and pays them about $8 an hour, and the challenges mount. Put in place a dynamic early childhood program director, Sr. Christina Marie Trudeau, and things begin to happen in spite of the challenges!

Sr. Christina started coming to Hawaii in the early 1970s to conduct summer workshops on Montessori philosophy and pedagogy. Hundreds showed up in the first few years, even though there were only three small Montessori schools at the time. Because the demand was so great, Sr. Christina was invited to submit a proposal to the education department at Chaminade University. The proposal was accepted and the process of getting AMS approval began. By 1974, Sr. Christina had recruited the first class of students. She recognized what many in academia do not, that is, to have a successful program it is necessary both to recruit students and to develop the field so there are employment opportunities. Within 10 years, on Oahu alone the field grew from three small oneroom settings to eight schools with 21 3-6 environments and 2 elementary programs (one 6-9 and one 6-12). Two schools were started on the island of Maui, both with elementary programs; and four schools opened on the Big Island of Hawaii, one with an elementary program. Chaminade's program trained almost all of the teachers who worked in these schools.

While the field was growing, it would be 8 years before the university would deeide to open its own demonstration school on campus. A new president selected in 1982 understood the need for the lab school and could see its potential for the campus community, as well as for the Montessori program. Until Chaminade had its own lab school, Kawaiahao Child Care Center served that purpose. The president approved the project in May 1982 and the lab school opened with 32 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds on the first Wednesday in September of that same year!

Within weeks Sr. Christina suggested two possible sites on campus. For one of the sites, she had arranged for a mortgage to pay for the building. For the other, Sr. Christina approached a local contractor who had a model apartment, for his latest condo project, set up in a double-wide mobile home. He agreed to donate the mobile home but Chaminade would have to transport it to campus. We got an estimate for moving it and engaged a local architect to design the building so that it would be consistent with the architectural style of other buildings on campus. Neither of these options was accepted. Instead, the president decided to sell the mobile home to raise the funds to build a new lab school.

The alternative proposed by the president was to renovate a large, underutilized storage room in the women's dorm. The dorm's maintenance utility closet would be converted into a bathroom and space would be taken from the dorm's lobby to build the school office. Christina agreed and set to work. It should be noted that this solution did not please the personnel in the Student Housing Office, who initially saw this as an encroachment on their territory. However, it was amove that was lauded by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which had financed the building. HUD liked the cooperative agreement that would have some of the lab school proceeds contribute to paying off the loan.

We then had to get approval from the Department of Social Services (DSS), which licenses childcare facilities, and from the Department of Education (DOE) which approves spaces for kindergartens. DSS proved relatively easy to work with. DOE almost brought everything to a complete halt when they insisted that we have more bathroom stalls. An agreement with the dorm to use facilities they had on the ground floor saved the day.

The lab school was planned as a complete indoor-outdoor environment; this involved cutting into the concrete wall to install two large windows and two large French doors opening onto a lanai. The lanai was already there, but it would have to be covered to make the space usable on a daily basis. Rain was not as much a concern as was afternoon sun and the need to protect children, furniture, and materials from its damaging effects.

Because the entire yard now had to be fenced, there was no money to purchase the desired shelving. Ever the problem solver, Sr. Christina paid someone to build them for her. The day before school opened, we were still painting shelves! Because the training program already in place possessed a complete complement of Montessori materials, they were used to adorn the new shelving inside the school environment.