Charles Ellis Montessori Academy
School Council
Charles Ellis Montessori Academy School Council
The school council initiative was created by the Georgia State Legislature as a means by which to involve parents, teachers, community members, and other stakeholders in the educational process. All public schools in the state of Georgia have a school council.
The school council, as an advisory body, serves to offer advice to the principal, superintendent, and school board on matters pertaining to student achievement and school improvement. It is composed of parents, teachers, business/community partners and the principal. The Charles Ellis school council includes a Montessori emeritus representative.
The Charles Ellis school council advocates for our school so that it may provide an authentic Montessori education for all students. It is dedicated to upholding the core values of Charles Ellis Montessori Academy: Wonderment & the Joy of Childhood; Respect, Diversity & Harmony; Stewardship; Self-reliance & Academic Empowerment; and Peace. The Charles Ellis school council supports the school mission of educating the whole child for a whole world.
All community members are welcome to attend school council meetings.
Members of School Council:
President: Maggie Fuller
Vice-President: Lori Wynn
Secretary and Business/Community Partner: Sarah Smith
Teacher Representatives: Angie LaPlante (2024/2025 Teacher of the Year), Lisa O'Donnell (2025/2026 Teacher of the Year)
Parent Representatives: Bridget Cross, Eric Hansen, Vian Morales, Aiysha Varraich, Leah Yakabovits
Business/Community Partner: Maja Ciric
Ex Officio: Mary Britton Senseney (M.E.S.S. President)
Ex Officio: Lacey Wyland (PTA Co-President)
Ex Officio: Diana McGaw (PTA Co-President)
Principal: Amanda Zito
2024/2025 School Council Meeting Schedule:
**All meetings take place at Ellis at 3:30pm and are open for anyone in the Ellis community to attend.**
August 14, 2024
October 16, 2024
January 15, 2025
March 12, 2025
2024/2025 School Council Meeting Minutes
June 25, 2025
Minutes
CEMA| School Council |MINUTES
Meeting date | time 6/25/25, start time: 10:12am | Meeting location CEMA Media Center
Attendees:
| Role | Name of |
|---|---|
| Chairperson | Maggie Fuller |
| Principal | Not present (Amanda Zito) |
| Teachers |
Angie LaPlante (Teacher of the Year 2024-25) Christina Heisler (Teacher of the Year 2026-27) |
| Parents | Bridget Cross, Leah Yakabovits, Eric Hansen, Vian Morales, Lori Wynn (VP) |
| Business/Community Partners | Maja Ciric (Business Member), Laura Filson (Montessori Emeritus), Diana McGaw (PTA) |
Guest and others attending: Patrice Prince (Assistant Principal), Charles McMillan (McMillan and Associates, School Council Liaison), Meredith Thompson (Parent)
Agenda topics:
| Topic | Discussion and Summary | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| OPENING: INSPIRATION | Inspiration presented by Ms. Laura: “The pessimist complains about the wind. The optimist expects it to change. The leader adjusts the sails.” –John Maxwell | ||
| Presentation by School Council Liaison Charles McMillan (CM) |
CM informed that SCCPSS School Board plans to vote today on principal changes for CEMA and 3 additional schools. Results of vote will be published to BoardDocs. CM provided positive feedback to School Council on principal interview process last year and recent advocacy efforts re: grading policy and potential principal search for upcoming school year. |
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CM provided School Council training:
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| Council’s Role in Selection of New Principal |
Discussion: Council’s advisory role in selection of new principal (see FAQ When Hiring a New Principal). As of today, status of Ms. Amanda’s potential job at Godley Station is not known. Council discussed its role in principal selection process as part of training and also in anticipation of potential future principal search.
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CM confirmed that the meeting to interview and deliberate on principal candidates is closed but Council’s final recommendation to school board is available to the public. Planning ahead for potential future principal search:
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| School Council Communication with CEMA Community |
Discussion: Communication with CEMA community re: School Council role, responsibilities, and actions.
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| Council transitions |
Sarah Smith is rolling off School Council on 6/30 and will still be involved with MESS. Maggie asks about teacher election process. CM suggests sending a message to all teachers to ask if they agree to elect Angie to a 3rd year on Council. Discussion of upcoming officer nominations. CM recommends we elect new officers at first meeting of 25-26 school year. Discussion of adding additional business member. CM recommends consideration of fit and access to needed resources. Leah notes we would benefit from business member who can support advocacy work. Maja suggests we define some of our goals as a Council as we haven’t been able to consider future plans due to accreditation, grading policy, past principal search, and possible new principal search. Diana reminds us that our primary focus after potential principal search is AMS accreditation process. |
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| Next Steps |
Discussion of AMS accreditation tabled until next meeting. Next meeting date will be set pending results of School Board vote today and any potential updates re: interim principal. Minutes will be finalized, sent to Council for approval, and shared via school website and Weekly Wonders. |
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Meeting adjourned at 12:04pm. Next meeting date TBD.
Agenda
Ellis School Council Meeting Agenda
June 25, 2025
3:30pm
Media Center
- Inspiration
- School Council Training with Charles McMillan
- School Council Business
- Approval of Minutes
- Introduce New Members
- Motion for Ms. Angie to remain in place of Ms. Lisa
- Officer nominations and voting
- Principal Succession
- Academic Achievement
- Grading Policy Change
- Goal Setting
- Accreditation
- Partner Updates
- MESS
- PTA
- Other Business
- Good things to share
May 19, 2025
CEMA| School Council |MINUTES
Meeting date | time 05/19/2025 7:00 PM | Meeting location Online via Microsoft Teams
Attendees:
| Role | Name of |
|---|---|
| Chairperson | Maggie Fuller |
| Principal | Amanda Zito |
| Teachers | Angie LaPLante (Teacher of the Year 2024-25) |
| Parents | Eric Hansen, Vian Morales, Aiysha Varraich, Leah Yakabovits |
| Business/Community Partners | Sarah Smith; Mary Britton Senseney (M.E.S.S.); Laura Filson (Montessori advocate); Maja Ciric; Diana McGaw (PTA) |
Agenda topics:
| Topic | Discussion and Summary |
|---|---|
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SPECIAL MEETING TO DISCUSS DISTRICT GRADING POLICY AND ITS IMPACT |
Maggie Fuller called for a time-sensitive online Teams meeting for an update to the Savannah Chatham County School System grading policy and its rollout Charles Ellis Montessori Academy. Ms. Amanda shared with Council that the District would no longer exempt Charles Ellis Montessori Academy (CEMA) from the District grading policy. Heretofore, the district had been entering “Z” for classes on CEMA student transcripts (code for nongraded classes) for many years. Ms. Amanda relayed that an employee at the district said she was no longer comfortable coding traditionally graded classes as nongraded. This employee “put her foot down,” and the district in turn told Ms. Amanda that the school would have to assign end of year grades. Ms. Amanda was previously told that the district desired for CEMA to enact grades during the 2023-2024 school year, but ultimately agreed that they would not be required, and that CEMA had the autonomy to assess student achievement according to its own criteria. CEMA staff then began to develop a rubric to determine a “grade” structure. The determination was made to assess student achievement corresponding to work habits from Montessori philosophy. Ms. Amanda noted that this criteria had previously been part of the Transparent Classroom platform that CEMA used in the past. Transparent Classroom measured students’ growth while it aligned Montessori and District standards. The team tasked with developing a current rubric to assess Montessori student achievement and align with District parameters reached out to other Montessori schools. The feedback they received was that Coastal Montessori, in our district, was developing a similar approach. It was difficult to align with other regional public Montessori schools’ approaches because CEMA is unique as a standalone public Montessori. Montessoris in Baldwin and Dekalb counties are housed within “typical” schools. Once The CEMA team developed a rubric with evidence-based feedback, they developed a script for teachers who would be charged with explaining the rubric and grading expectation to parents. Teachers were asked to have these conversations during fourth period conferences (about two weeks ago). The conversations resulted in a lot of pushback from parents. Rachel Hurst and Ms. Amanda had many ensuing conversations. For context, Rachel did not begin in her position as Amanda’s direct report until the summer of 2024. Previously Ms. Amanda had worked with Dr. Tory Brown. While she has been new in her role, Rachel has been learning about her own responsibilities and working with CEMA for a grading solution for the 2024-2025 school year.
As of this past Friday, Ms. Amanda did not feel that the district would make any change on their mandate for CEMA to institute the district grading policy. She said that CEMA is going to visit Coastal Montessori to see how they are working through the grading mandate. CEMA is going to talk to Coastal Montessori over the summer and reevaluate its own rubric with additional feedback. The intent is that this feedback informs adjustments to the grading policy for the 2025-2026 school year. Ms. Amanda doesn’t believe that the district is mandating grades at CEMA indefinitely, but she does feel like the conversation is closed for this school year and that the grades will stand for 2024-2025. Ms. Amanda met with School Board Representative Denise Grabowski, whom she knows supports the Montessori model and is using her influence to have conversations about grading at the board level. Ms. Amanda also met with Eric Hansen this morning, and he shared some parent concerns that we [Council] may not be aware of. For example, Explorations class evaluations are also appearing on transcripts as numeric grades. Ms. Angie, who teaches an explorations class (Technology) explained that the explorations teachers give a letter grade E,S,N, U. Upon review, those letter grades translate to a numeric grade, which is the midpoint of a grade range (e.g. S = 80-90, resulting in an 85 numeric grade). Eric asked why CEMA is implementing grades at the end of the school year when it appears that even all teachers don’t firmly understand the policy or the rollout. Other parents voiced similar concerns. CEMA families are vocalizing wildly different experiences and seeing different rubrics. Some families are saying they did not have a conference or receive information about grading. The community is confused and upset. Ms. Amanda responded that it was very clear between her and the teaching staff that conferences needed to be had and even how to communicate the grading rollout at the conference. She is trying to explore how communication breakdowns may have occurred. Ms. Amanda believes there is a discrepancy between what teachers are saying and what parents are saying. Eric continued by saying that a district grading mandate should have been addressed at the beginning of the year and not rushed out at the end of the year. Diana inquired if the new grading policy is a state mandate or simply resulting from a single person who did not want to continue entering “Z” on transcripts. Ms. Laura said when Charles Ellis was originally established as a Montessori choice program, there existed a document that addressed the issue of grading. Last year, Ms. Beth and Ms. Tanya found the Board Policy from 2022 that reflected developmental levels K-5 would have conferences and 6-8 would receive grades. Grades were exempted for the 2023-2024 school year. Vian suggested Council find the policy and draft a letter to the district expressing our concerns and inconsistencies, especially as they relate to district-imposed standards. The letter should outline the grading policy issues and subsequent impact and challenges to our community. Council collectively asked if we were led astray in thinking the grading policy was a state mandate and is questioning if it was just a single person uncomfortable with CEMA’s grading policy exemption. Council also raised questions about where to find alleged documentation about CEMA’s grading policy exemption. Council resolved to write a letter to the district asking for clarification about a grading policy mandate this year, even though CEMA has previously been exempted. Ms. Amanda made final remarks to Council, saying that what will be most helpful is if we all work together. The Teams platform ended the meeting for all at 8 p.m. |
On May 21, the School Council sent a letter to SCCPSS requesting a cancellation of grades for the 2024-2025 school year, if no policy existed mandating its implementation. The letter referenced the 2022 Board Policy Regulations as supporting documentation: Savannah Chatham County School System Regulation IHE-R: Promotion and Retention: “Students in the Montessori Program will be evaluated according to teacher observation and the student's progression through the Montessori materials. Student progress will be reported to parents each nine-week period through a narrative report given by the teacher during the parent-teacher conference. Students may not receive report cards with traditional letter grades.”
School Council did not properly vote to draft and send a letter to the district. On May 23, via email, Council member Sarah Smith made a point of order on parliamentary procedure and moved to send a letter via email to District Leadership requesting the cancelation and reevaluation of grades at Charles Ellis Montessori Academy. The motion was seconded and duly approved on May 23.