Season 2 Ep. 5: A conversation with the DC Wildflower Public Charter School Leadership Team
Wildflower is an ecosystem of decentralized Montessori micro-schools that support children, teachers, and families. They aspire to give all children and families the opportunity to have high quality education in beautiful learning environments and they do this through the creation of small teacher-led schools. Our guests for this episode are the leadership team for a new initiative in Washington, DC: A Wildflower public charter school. The DC Wildflower Public Charter School, is a non-hierarchical organization that will create up to six — one-room, community embedded micro-Montessori schools led by teachers, embedded in a neighborhood serving families in the District of Columbia. To learn more about the DC Wildflower Public Charter School check out this blogpost.
Guests on this episode (in alphabetical order)
Maia Blankenship is a Partner at the Wildflower Foundation who serves in a role to ensure that educators are valued, supported, and empowered to create vibrant learning environments for students. Maia brings more than 15 years of experience with strategic planning, talent strategy, process improvement and organizational design in her role at the Wildflower Foundation. Maia earned a Bachelor of Science from Spelman College and a Master’s in Business Administration from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She served on the founding team to launch DC Wildflower Public Charter School, an non-hierarchical organization that will create up to six — one-room, community embedded micro-Montessori schools led by teachers, embedded in a neighborhood serving families in the District of Columbia. She is the proud mom of an independent five year old who attends a public Montessori program in Ward 5.
Zani Dalili-Ortique is a D.C Montessorian with over 15 years of teaching experience in the pre-school and elementary levels. She holds an M.ED and Montessori Elementary certificate from Loyola University, Maryland. Zani is committed to sharing educational excellence in the communities she serves.
Rachel Kimboko has been engaged in the Montessori community of Washington, DC since her daughter enrolled in DC’s oldest public program in 2003. Before starting her teaching career in public Montessori she worked in out-of-school time and as an assistant at Aidan Montessori. Between 2010 and 2017, she taught in all three variations of elementary classroom—6-9, 9-12, and 6-12 years old—and was the Elementary team lead for several years. Her experience in DC public schools prepared her to step out of the classroom and focus on assessment, intervention, and instructional coaching at Lee Montessori as Child Study Lead, then as founding Assistant Head of School of the East End campus. Today she is the Executive Director of the new DC Wildflower Public Charter School. She has served as the Vice-Chair and Treasurer for the AMI Elementary Alumni Association since 2019.
Ebony Marshman is a D.C. educator, and artist who believes imaginations must be nourished. Her career as an early childhood educator spans 8 years, and her teaching practice is rooted in anti-bias, anti-racist (ABAR) principles. She is an AMI certified Primary Guide, who also holds an M.ED. in Montessori Education from Loyola University, Maryland.