Great River Charter Montessori School
Great River School is a Montessori charter school in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
Great River School is a charter Montessori Junior High and High School in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Known to insiders as simply "GRS." It is known for being community-oriented, and creating confident, kind leaders. Founded in 2004 on leadership, service, and peace formation, Great River fosters independence, critical thinking, respect, responsibility to self, to others, and to the earth.
The school has a very strong, academically rigorous program. Because it is a public school, entrance is by lottery if there are more students who want to enroll than there are spots. Typically, the enrollment period is over on the first Monday of February with the lottery the next day. Since 2007, there has been a waiting list to get into Great River, simply because so many people want to attend. On a regular basis, both the Junior and Senior High students meet in their respective groups in a community meeting to discuss various topics that impact the whole community. The elected student leaders lead this meeting, and the school talks about "important" issues.
One unique example of how Montessori is being applied to a High School is the way in which the High School Student Government was set up in the fall of 2005. During the fall trip, a group of students that showed an interest in student government met and brainstormed ideas about how the system should be set up for the future. After long discussions, the end result was a student-written constitution detailing the jobs and responsibilities of the cabinet and the senate. Students created a new government with twenty students, ten Advocates and ten Intermediaries. The Advocates work with the students to write bills and get things done. The Intermediaries work with the staff on programs and upcoming events throughout the school. In the first two years of the new student government, the off campus lunch bill and wireless policy were passed. This new Student Government is still going strong today.
Read more about Great River Charter Montessori School: Key Experiences
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“Discipline must come through liberty.... We do not consider an individual disciplined only when he has been rendered as artificially silent as a mute and as immovable as a paralytic. He is an individual annihilated, not disciplined.”
—Maria Montessori (1870–1952)
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—Anna Quindlen (b. 1953)