HS Proposal - Ryan Earabino


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Proposal Name: Montessori School of Raleigh High School

Brought by: Ryan Earabino

Sponsored by: Julie Ruble, Nick Smith, Subhash Patel, Rose Barnett, Mike Szott, Linda

Date of Creation: 10/21/14

We bring a proposal to: build a high school to extend the Montessori curriculum in the Raleigh-Durham area, so that kids and their families can have all that is good about MSR, and include all that’s good about existing high schools.

 

Background:

This purpose of this proposal is to give people in Raleigh a Montessori high school because there is none right now. I propose to extend the Montessori curriculum to a high school level to give students more time to reach their full potential in a Montessori environment.  The Montessori education provides different opportunities than other schools such as an in depth and personal learning structure, the team building exercises and trips we take, all of these and much more I talk about below.

 

As we strive to make a new school with a bigger Montessori school, we want to preserve the family feel throughout your peers and make everyone feel very welcome in their community. To avoid this, we could keep to our cubby system because weather has school has lockers and cubbies makes a huge difference. When you have cubbies, it gives a feel of trust throughout the school. This trust is something that the Montessori environment revolves around. Teachers put lots of trust in their student to organize things like hot lunches and some of the trips we talk like the 9th grade Europe trip. The assignment of building a school is a perfect example. A ninth grade group put in charge of building a school that will be used by the kids of the future

 

Every year in the Montessori School of Raleigh, we do an annual team building trip. This is a tradition that I feel needs to be continued in the high school. We could do anything from going to a ropes course, to a camping trip. We also do lots of service trips at the middle school which we should absolutely continue. We go to things like: elder homes, soup kitchens, and we also go to parks that have work that needs to be done.

 

greater personal responsibility for students, like using cubbies instead of lockers, computers out in the open, voting on lunches, organizing tours to businesses and schools.A great example of this trust is the assignment to  help design a high school.

 

Extending MSR to a high school is a positive change because it will include social and academic aspects of a public school, which other families are used to.  Making them more comfortable about trying something new, and sending their kid to the Montessori high school.  For example: more kids will enroll in the Middle School, Elementary and Children’s House programs, because they can now complete the whole education process without changing schools kids that play sports will spend more time with same team/program. That will support better teams with longer relationships, and coaches will know their strengths more.We can also have college prep courses and other activities high school kids need, and are used to.  

 

 

Mission Statement:

The Montessori School of Raleigh is the Triangle’s modern embodiment and mindful practice of the time-proven Montessori philosophy, developing agile thinkers, poised communicators, and gracious collaborators—engineers of authentic and fulfilling lives.

 

How This Proposal Fulfills the Mission:

  1. My proposal includes how students can reach their full potential in sports with the continuation of our teams, which promotes more fulfilling lives

  2. My proposal shows how a student can learn what is means to be green and how the students can be more green in their lives away from school, which creates engineers of authentic lives

  3. My proposal keeps the family feel and traditions of the Montessori School of Raleigh by including a central kitchen and lounge area that will be used for meal sharing and discussion, helping to create gracious collaborators

  

Proposal:

I propose that there be multiple green features in the school such as: solar panels, fresh water collection systems, natural heating, and many more. I want our school to have as much natural light as possible. Natural light is a much better source of light than artificial light because it can improve working habits, speed, and overall happiness. I would like to put solar panels on the roof to help create green sustainable energy. This is an expensive project but will eventually pay itself back in the money saved from lower electricity bills. As a school that takes a very hands-on approach, I would like to be able to teach the students how to maintain and operate the solar panels and other equipment along those lines. I want to design outdoor classrooms into the high school, because they gives the feeling of natural light and can help refresh the students from being inside all day.

 

I also propose to keep our school involved in various sports and increase these opportunities to students. I would need a regulation size soccer field, and an indoor gym for both basketball and volleyball. These could be placed at the south side of the cross-country parking, or to the east where the bike, music, and pottery shacks are. Of course, I do not want to take away these opportunities from the middle school, so those facilities would need to be rebuilt in a suitable location. As we have now added a new performing stage at the MSR Lower campus, we would need one in the middle school as well. This would benefit both the middle school and the high school for any presentations they have, such as plays, concerts, Humanities Night.

 

I estimate that the project, including planning and construction, will take up to five years to complete. This means that the students of the class of 2020 could be able to attend the high school. A budget will also be required for such a big project. This budget would cover costs of: construction materials, appliances, technology, and labor. To cover all of these costs I estimate that I would need a minimum budget of $7.2 million dollars.

 

Environmental Stewardship:

I propose that there be multiple green features in the school such as: solar panels, fresh water collection systems, natural heating, and many more. I want our school to have as much natural light as possible. Natural light is a much better source of light than artificial light because it can improve working habits, speed, and overall happiness. I would like to put solar panels on the roof to help create green sustainable energy. This is an expensive project but will eventually pay itself back in the money saved from lower electricity bills. As a school that takes a very hands-on approach, I would like to be able to teach the students how to maintain and operate the solar panels and other equipment along those lines. I want to design outdoor classrooms into the high school, because they gives the feeling of natural light and can help refresh the students from being inside all day.

 

Process Review:

 

I went through a four step process to make my proposal:

 

Find out the functions

What classes do we need?

What utilities do we need? (Bathroom, Kitchen)

Do we want to have places to have community meetings?

What common meeting areas can we have?

What sports are we going to have? Are we going to have recess?

 

Find out the limits

How big is our budget?

Where can we build our high school? At the middle school? Lower Campus?

How many students do we expect to have?

 

Look into the green functions

Could we have solar panels to help cut down costs?

Is a rooftop garden a possibility?

How can we get air from outside and filter it besides an AC unit?

Do we want natural light, or artificial light?

 

Set up Tours and interviews

Contact Mr. Ammons for basic understanding of the building process

Set up tours at multiple LEED certified buildings such as the Lakewood Montessori

Set up tours at other high schools to see what we would need for our high school to function properly 

 

Suggested Board Motions:

Now that you have read my proposal, the next step needs to be taken. I suggest that as the board of the Montessori School of Raleigh, to let us move to the design stage where we could start the blueprint. If we start the designing as soon as possible, we would be able to make multiple options. We would also be able to tweak our designs to both our liking, and what even possible. We could also continue looking into the green features of our school such as solar panels and motion sensor lights. This would give us time to narrow down to see what we can actually include and fit in our school.

 

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