Rapid Growth of Bovina Center Montessori School

By Robert Brune

BOVINA — The story of the current location of the Bovina Center Montessori School (BCMS) reaches as far back as the mid-1800’s when it was a dairy farm owned by the Miller Family for more than seventy years. After the farm passed through several owners continuing as a dairy farm, it became a summer camp for another sixty years up until 2005. After many years of the property that once could accommodate three hundred guests at the ‘Suits Us Farm’ summer camp, it fell into disrepair until Danish couple, Sophie Wallas Rasmussen and David Madie, decided to begin the process of renovating the property and transforming it into a Montessori school in 2020.

Since BCMS opened their doors September 2021, they continued to renovate and bring on more staff, increase the number of children to currently forty-five students and eight teachers, and are very ambitious by adding new programs and services to the community. This past weekend BCMS held a fundraising gala event in the new banquet room at the Andes Hotel. Katie Henry, one of the English instructors at BCMS, was the primary organizer of this event explains, “The KidSkill Fund is a 501(c)3 that provides funds for choice schools, after-care, and summer care programs in the greater Catskill region. The Winter Gala at Andes Hotel last night had 62 guests in attendance, and included a silent auction, student presentations, and a delicious dinner. The event’s goal was to ask for monthly supporters to build out the fund in a sustainable way, though we raised roughly $5,500 in the evening from ticket sales and silent auction items. Last year, all of the funds raised through KidSkill Fund went to providing financial aid to qualifying families who wanted their children to attend Bovina Center Montessori School. In 2024 the fund is expanding its reach by using 20% of its funds outside of the school and is using an open application on its website for organizations and families to apply for financial aid to qualifying programs.”

According to co-founder David Madie, the school recently met with former marketing executive and local Bovina Center artist Neil Powell, who we at the Mountain Eagle did a feature artist profile not too long ago, will be contributing to the arts program at BCMS. Powell describes his coming participation at BCMS, “Delaware County Art + Design Studio, a new non-profit art learning organization located in Bovina Center opening March '24, is pleased to be piloting their signature programs, CowBell Kids Workshop, Make Stuff for teens, and But I Can't Draw for adults at Bovina Montessori for a 7 week period starting in January. CowBell Kids Workshop is a free program for any kid 8-12 residing in the Delaware County area. They offer a wide range of free classes that provide an innovative and interactive learning experience for children. The classes are carefully designed to intertwine aspects of science, math, and nature, taking a holistic approach to arts education. Their other programs, Make Stuff and But I Can't Draw are paid classes, and they help fund a CowBell Kid to take a class. Taking inspiration from The Bauhaus movement, Make Stuff, developed for teens 13-18, combines many processes of art and design. The class projects are engaging and foster experimentation. These are strong portfolio projects for young adults looking to gain entry into art school.” With the bond measure to renovate the Andes Central School that failed to pass this past summer, the diversity of schooling options are a viable consideration for parents when talented folks like Powell are stepping up to contribute their skills, not only as a very successful business person and artist, but also as a history of being a guest lecturer on the subject of design around the world. Powell is also a former senior portfolio instructor at the School Of Visual Arts in Manhattan.

Another initiative of BCMS is that they hope to help the community with the availability problem of childcare programs, as Madie describes the area as a childcare desert, “We are working on starting this in September 2024 with space for 8 children from the age of 8 weeks to 18 months. One key challenge is to find the staff which we are working on. When the program opens current families at the school will have priority, but we expect to also have space for new first-time parents.” The childcare program is the only program that may draw from public funds at BCMS. In the coming year, they will be pushing towards including high school classes but, again, staffing is the hurdle, according to Madie.

As far as any criticism from folks or institutions that support the many other learning styles available to students, Madie responds, “I think it's good for any community to have many options for school choice as this helps attract families to the county and gives any family the option of choosing the kind of school they believe is best for their children, in our case a farm-based school. Our school only has three school-aged children from Andes School District, as our students are coming in from all over the county.” Madie provides insight to the teaching structure, “The Montessori environment is focused on giving students motivation for learning. This is done by giving the maximum amount of choice to students and making sure that what students learn is related to practice. This is especially possible in a farm school where working with chickens includes biology, chemistry, math, geometry, entrepreneurship and more. Importantly any Montessori School in NYS must have "academic equivalence" with public schools and the local school district is making recurring evaluations of this. In other words, you learn the same in a Montessori School as in a traditional school, but the curriculum is taught in a different way and in a different environment.”

For more information on BCMS See: https://www.bovinamontessori.com/