![]() It started as a half-day preschool and kindergarten, then gradually added more ages and grades. Schwab and Sheila Brown founded Nightingale Montessori in 1978, when Brown was looking for a Montessori school for her children and Schwab was looking for a position to teach using Montessori principles. Department of Agriculture awarded the school a $130,000 grant to put toward the kitchen and gardens. ![]() Suspended ceilings have been exposed to show the beams. Other refurbishments have included a new insulated roof, an electrical upgrade and a new heating, ventilation and air conditioning system. Floor-to-ceiling windows in all the classrooms let in the sunlight. The wooded area next to the new building was a big attraction, and the pod classrooms jut into the garden areas, Schwab says. Some high schoolers have even helped with the renovation, tearing down dividing walls and learning to mount LED lighting. ![]() High school students have been at the building since 2018 – long enough to grow a pear tree, she says – and some of its younger students have moved to the new school more recently. Donations can be made on the school’s website. The school has so far self-financed $2.5 million and is hoping to raise another $500,000 to complete the renovations and move all the students to the new location by this summer, she says. “It’s hard for us to raise enough money to do justice to the building,” she says. It needed more refurbishing than expected. The prairie-style structure was originally constructed in 1973 as the headquarters for Bonded Oil and later subdivided into office suites for multiple tenants, Schwab says. The school purchased the Limestone Street building in 2017. One child has even said that searching for cherry tomatoes is better than an Easter egg hunt, Schwab says. The school has two horticulturists on staff, and the gardens are important to the students. It also has room for fruit trees and gardens to grow herbs, raspberries, vegetables and more. High St.Īt around 26,000 square feet, the new location is twice as large and is surrounded by woods, Schwab says. Limestone St., from its current building at 1106 E. Horticulture and the outdoors play a large role at the non-profit Nightingale Montessori school, which is in the process of moving to a new site at 2525 N. “It’s really the symbol of everything we’re doing at the school,” Schwab says. And just like people, seeds thrive under different conditions. Seeds mature at different times – just like people, says Nancy Schwab, a founder of Nightingale Montessori.
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