Montessori Magnet School

(HARTFORD, CT) – The Capitol Region Education Council (CREC)’s Montessori Magnet School has been chosen as a national success story by the American Association of School Administrators (AASA). Starting on March 15, 2012, the front page of the “AASA Connect” website featured the school’s dramatic gains in student achievement between 2009 and 2011. The goal of the AASA success stories is to share best practices between superintendents and administrators who are facing similar challenges and can learn from the success of schools like the CREC Montessori Magnet School.

AASA’s full story describes the challenges that the CREC Montessori Magnet School overcame starting in 2008-2009 when they were identified as a “School in Need of Improvement”. The newly hired principal made immediate, strategic, and dramatic changes in staffing, planning, curriculum, and culture and the results were remarkable.

Last year, the CREC Montessori Magnet School achieved double-digit gains in mathematics achievement at both the goal level (12.7 percentage point gains) and proficient level (13.5 percentage point gains). In addition, 93% of students met or exceeded the state’s proficiency standard in reading, and 91% of students performed at goal, the second highest level of achievement possible on the CMT. The school expects to see the same or better results this year.

“Being recognized by the AASA means so much to our staff and families,” explained Melissa Gagne, principal of the CREC Montessori Magnet School. “Our school community pulled together in the most difficult of times, and everyone's hard work and dedication have resulted in academic excellence. In the end the children reap the benefit and that is the best feeling in the world.”

CREC’s Montessori Magnet School is the first school from Connecticut to be featured as an AASA success story.

Read the Hartford Business Journal's article here