This summer we have challenged our staff and elementary students to share a bit of their summer with us. Monty the Meerkat, our school mascot, is traveling with us. So far he has been to professional development workshops at the Kennedy Center and a Washington Nationals baseball game. He has also been a part of the lobby construction and watched the workers as they installed our new gym floor. Monty has been spotted at Elmwood Park preparing to go on a zip line with a few of our students. Monty is on the move, and it’s only the beginning of July!

One of the beauties of Wilmington Montessori School is the fact that each person in our community has a voice. We can say what we think, play with ideas, accept or reject them and move on. The idea of Monty spending his summer with us in different locales was brought to us by a long-time member of our community. She thought it would be fun. The next thing you knew, Monty was being created, distributed and introduced to us, and off he went for some summer fun. The way a community grows and thrives is that it allows space for thinking, reflecting and sharing. It is open…to ideas, people, differences in thinking and more. We are better together than apart. And that is how Monty is going places this summer. Thanks to this culture and ability to adapt, he will have the best summer of all of us!

Follow us on Facebook and Instagram to get updates about Monty’s whereabouts. Want your own Flat Monty to join you on your summer adventures? Email Noel Dietrich, our director of communications, at noel_dietrich@wmsde.org.