Despite Montessori falling through, city says it supports education

Saying they couldn’t make their business profitable with what the city said it needed, Shannon and Kari Johns pulled the plug Thursday on plans to open New Hope Montessori School within the City of Maricopa.

In turn, the city released a statement late Thursday afternoon saying it supports education in Maricopa.

“The City of Maricopa finds it unfortunate that New Hope Montessori has decided not to pursue its facility at this time,” City of Maricopa Public Affairs Manager Jennifer Grentz said. “In no way does this affect the city’s stance on the importance of education for the community. City officials always have and always will support education, both public and private, in the city.”

Grentz added that city staff members at all levels meet regularly with Maricopa Unified administrators, and the city has an Educational Task Force that works with the school district in an effort to provide the best education possible for the children of Maricopa.

According to Shannon and Kari Johns, opening a temporary site within a “Special Planning Area” on Maricopa’s General Plan proved to be challenging. They noted that additional costs required by the city to construct half street improvements prior to opening would not be financially feasible to operate a business.

Shannon Johns said the couple thought in the beginning that they could file for a temporary use permit but were later told to file for conditional use, being led to believe that perhaps they could place the half-street issue on as a condition to be met at a later date. “Unfortunately, towards the end, we could not get half-streets placed on as a condition, and the added costs for constructing the improvements would not allow our business to operate in the black, even at capacity,” Johns said.

The couple said the city stood firm that it would not compromise the health and safety of the public, although they noted that two other educational facilities are reportedly operating without such improvements, along with the temporary city hall site. “We too don’t want to compromise health and safety, but felt that we were held to a double standard,” the couple said.

Shannon and Kari Johns added that when they envisioned opening a Montessori school four years ago, and put that plan into action when moving to Maricopa in late 2005, they thought that getting in on the ground floor within a new up-and-coming city would be a welcoming venture.

“We thought wrong,” the couple said. “This process opened our eyes as small business owners trying to succeed in Maricopa, and we’ll step back for a couple of years and regroup. Hopefully, we can start again in 2009 to bring Montessori education in Maricopa, but we may pursue other locations that have more welcoming arms.”

There are reportedly more than 8,000 privately held Montessori schools in the country, as well as several hundred public schools that include Montessori programs. The majority of schools have a primary program (from 3-6 years) and often a lower elementary (6-9 years). Upper elementary programs (9-12 years) are not as common although about one school in eight offers this program.

The Johns’ said that all deposits for parents who have registered their children would be returned by mail on Sept. 7.

“Our apologies, and thank you for your support over the past year in trying to bring in quality education for our city’s preschoolers,” the couple added.