Protect the practice. Keep the promise.

What changed

DCPS has provided limited information about what is happening in classrooms. But, so far, the information we have shows DCPS made these changes to CHML that do not align with a Montessori education.

Read more about what makes a Montessori education authentic from the Association Montessori International, the organization founded by Maria Montessori that sets standards for Montessori schools.

1. Uninterrupted Work Periods: DCPS replaced the two and three hour work periods of Montessori where children lead their own learning with the standard schedule where teachers lead learning on a subject for 1-1.5 hours. The schedule sent to families also labels non-Montessori learning periods with the Montessori term “work cycle.”
2. Materials and Curriculum: DCPS mandated the use of the standard DCPS curriculum and materials (like Heggerty phonics for reading and Eureka math), including in the AMI-accredited Primary program that previously had only used the Montessori materials and curriculum.
3. Teachers: DCPS replaced AMI-certified Montessori teachers with teachers that are not AMI-certified and appear to have little to no Montessori training.

Why the changes matter

Deep concentration is essential to children’s cognitive development. It strengthens their capacity to sustain attention, solve problems, regulate themselves, persevere through difficulty, and engage in increasingly complex thought.

In Montessori, concentration cannot be imposed through whole-group instruction. It develops when a trained guide observes each child, offers an individual lesson at the right moment, and connects that child with purposeful work that sparks genuine interest. Children must then have the freedom and uninterrupted time to choose that work, follow it at their own rhythm, repeat it, and progress toward mastery. Within this freedom, guides continually direct children toward increasingly rigorous and cognitively demanding work.

The uninterrupted three-hour morning work cycle creates the conditions for this development. AMI/USA identifies it as a core standard of Montessori practice at the Primary and Elementary levels.

The current administration has eliminated the uninterrupted three-hour work cycle altogether. In its place, it has instituted a traditional schedule that groups all children together to focus on a single curricular area in one-hour blocks throughout the day.

That is not self-directed learning. It does not preserve freedom of choice, respond to each child’s readiness, respect individual rhythms, or allow deep concentration to emerge through sustained, purposeful work. It is whole-group, adult-directed instruction—and it is fundamentally at odds with Montessori practice.

Montessori is a comprehensive, carefully sequenced curriculum—not a collection of activities that can simply be combined with any instructional program. Lessons are presented primarily one-on-one, allowing the guide to tailor each presentation to a child’s particular developmental need at that precise moment. Montessori guides complete intensive, specialized training aligned with international standards so they can observe each child, select the appropriate lesson, and present the materials with scientific precision.

The rigor of the Early Childhood Montessori curriculum is often underestimated. Its mathematics sequence extends from concrete experiences with quantity and numeral recognition through place value, operations into the thousands, multiplication, division, fractions, squaring, and cubing. This advanced cognitive work is possible because of the precise design of the Montessori materials and the guide’s carefully trained presentation of them.

The language curriculum is equally rigorous. Beginning with sound awareness and letter–sound associations in the PK3 year, children progress through word-building and phonetic reading toward self-directed reading, expressive writing, grammar study, and poetry—often by Kindergarten. This progression is possible because each material isolates a particular concept while preparing the child for the lesson that follows.

The curriculum, materials, trained guide, prepared environment, and uninterrupted work cycle form one integrated system. The materials are not optional classroom resources or supplemental manipulatives: they embody the curriculum itself. Without them—or when other programs are taught in their place—Montessori guides cannot fully practice the method they were trained to provide.

The current administration has forced traditional curricula, including Eureka Math² and Heggerty, into our classrooms in place of the Montessori curriculum—restricting what our trained guides can teach and limiting the depth, independence, and intellectual challenge our children can experience. These programs follow different instructional structures, lesson sequences, and assumptions about how and when children learn. Requiring their use displaces the individualized presentations, specialized materials, and child-directed progression that define Montessori education.

A school cannot preserve Montessori merely by retaining its name, a selection of materials, or teachers with Montessori credentials. The curriculum must be protected as a coherent whole and implemented by trained guides according to the principles and practices that make it Montessori.

How we discovered what happened

DCPS did not inform families that it planned to change the daily schedule and lessons. Families did not know about this during the lottery process, when they made enrollment decisions, or when their children walked into school on the first day. Once the school year started, families began to hear rumors of changes, and some teachers shared daily schedules that did not meet the Montessori standard.

CHML administration held a community meeting on September 8, more than two weeks after school started. The school community submitted many questions in writing before and during the meeting. DCPS and CHML's leadership still have not given a clear response to many of these questions.

What DCPS has said

DCPS claims that nothing is changing. They assert a commitment to "Montessori programming."

Montessori is not programming that supplements a traditional curriculum. Montessori is the curriculum and needs to be implemented faithfully. The things that school leadership and DCPS staff described during the meeting - revised daily schedules, non-Montessori materials added to classrooms, traditional lessons mixed into Montessori work cycles - are all changes that violate Montessori standards.

Questions & answers