Concord Montessori & Community Schools

Authentic learning was also observed at the Concord Montessori and Community School in Mancelona, Michigan where parents are literally a regular part of the landscape. Director, Steve Overton points with pride to an organic community garden growing in the school yard as a symbol of his efforts to extend learning and service to his community. Concord embraces the research-based methods of Dr. Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligence and Dr. Maria Montessori’s hands-on methodology. Teachers differentiate to meet each student’s needs in an arts-integrated curriculum. Concord utilizes dance, drama, visual arts, creative writing, and music to bring learning to life. A thematic approach ties lessons together across disciplines, while making the content relevant and real to students. Whether writing, producing, or acting in a historical play, or incorporating music and math, the academic curriculum and the arts curriculum, developed by Concord Academy founder Kim Overton, are uniquely intertwined. The Concord Academy in Petoskey, Michigan was named a 2008 US News and World Reports Bronze School for their academic accomplishments.

According to Steve Overton, the success in Charter Schools is leader-intensive because they are people-oriented as opposed to systems-oriented. His success started small, with teachers literally meeting in parks when the first school began in 1997. “I remember interviewing one of our first teachers,” he explained, “When she told me she was a teacher, and she could teach with a newspaper on a tree stump, I told her, You’re hired!” Director, Steve Overton leads with a down-to-earth approach believing, “Leadership is about logic and love.”