Feedback Needed: Interest in Wildflower School Model
Commongrounds needs your feedback! If you care about quality early childhood education, as a parent or a provider, please take a moment to read below and complete the survey and/or forward to people you know that might be interested.
What is the early childhood crisis?
First, a little background: Our region faces a crisis in early childhood care and learning that dramatically impacts working families, employers, ands kids: we only have 1/3 of the infant and toddler care spots we need. The problem is not only quantity, but also ensuring quality -- studies show ages 0-3 is one of the most important stage for brain development, with far better outcomes in future education, work, and relationships and happiness when babies receive high quality learning and care. If it is so important, why do we have such an extreme shortage? The main reason is simple math: care is expensive with a ratio of one teacher to four babies (plus the costs of operating a school). Parents can’t afford it and the state barely subsidizes it because the budgets have not caught up to the reality that early childhood care and learning is as essential as education at other ages. Plus, like every other industry, we face a people shortage and there just are not enough trained teachers living and working here.
Why and how is Commongrounds involved?
Given the severity of the crisis, Commongrounds has been very committed to finding a way to help address the issues of the quantity of care and availability of quality teachers. A rockstar team has helped to brainstorm what Commongrounds can best do to contribute – after all, in addition to space for care and learning, we have a network of supporters and space for meetings and classes, and affordable housing we can reserve to attract new teachers.
The outcome of this community work is an exciting proposal: what if our community partners with a national foundation, the Wildflower Foundation, for Commongrounds to be the hub supporting a network of small, storefront high-quality Montessori classrooms for infants and toddlers? This is still a preliminary idea, and the first step is a feasibility study gathering feedback from community members like you.
What are Wildflower Schools?
Wildflower Schools are small 1-2 room child-centered Montessori learning environments that grow in neighborhoods where families live or work. They are scalable and nimble, and can adapt to the changing needs of families and offer high-quality early childhood education at an affordable cost by reducing the amount of administrative overhead needed to operate. The Michigan Wildflower Hub would provide tools and support to teachers interested in growing Wildflower schools.
What's happening now...
A group of parents, teachers, and other community professionals, the Michigan Wildflower Hub Advisory Group, are leading the way on exploring this partnership. The Michigan Wildflower Hub has just been awarded a seed grant from Rotary Charities, with the help of United Way of Northwest Michigan and Commongrounds, to fund a feasiblity study that will gauge community interest and ability to support the growth of Wildflower Schools in Northern Michigan. It will assess:
1. Family Interest
2. Teacher Interest
3. Community Partnerships
4. Funding
5. Real Estate
If community feedback supports the feasibility, the study will be reviewed by the Wildflower Foundation, and once they approve our Michigan Wildflower Hub, a team of teachers would then bring their vision of their school to life (16 seats in total) in the new Commongrounds building on Eighth Street. The hub will plan to add at least one new school each year for the next five years, eventually building at least 96 high-quality and cost-accessible early childhood education seats in the five county area.
How You Can Help
If you are a family interested in learning more about the affordable, high-quality early childhood education of Wildflower schools, please complete this family interest survey.
If you are a Montessorian or early childhood educator interested in growing a Wildflower school in Northern Michigan, please complete this teacher interest survey.
If you are interested in working with us on this project, please contact Jen Harris, Montessori Consultant at jen@schoolwardconsulting.com. We are looking for:
Advisory/nonprofit board members
Community organizations interested in working collaboratively to address the ECE shortage, build partnerships, strengthen existing ECE network, and grow Wildflower schools
Creative thinkers and doers who are willing to share time and talent
Donors or investors who can bring these ideas to life
If you are just interested in reading a little more about the model, check out this summary.