Our School

Mapleton Montessori School in Boulder, Colorado was founded in 1979, the International Year of the Child. Two sisters, Dede and Patty Coogan, had a dream that started in an old historic church on Mapleton Hill with twelve children and a morning Montessori class. After sixteen years and with a growing student body, the school moved across town in 1995 and built its own beautiful home at its present location, 3121 29th Street.

Today, Mapleton Montessori has eighty to ninety families and a year round program. Although we’ve doubled in size, Mapleton Montessori maintains a comfortable, homelike atmosphere where families have daily contact with their children’s teachers, children experience the joy of working together and lifelong friendships are formed.

Faculty

The core faculty members at Mapleton Montessori School are all Montessori trained, either by AMI (Association Montessori International) or AMS (American Montessori Society). They consist of Dede Beardsley, founder, Terri Todd, Dona Bhavani, Susan Leibfritz and Anna Applebaum. The classes also have either one or two assistants, depending upon the number of children in each class.

Dede Coogan Beardsley
Dede, founder and director of Mapleton Montessori School, has been involved in Montessori education for over thirty years, many of which were spent actively teaching. After graduating from Dickinson College with a B.A. in English and French, Dede lived in Paris; it was there she discovered Montessori. Working as a nanny, she delivered two children to a Montessori school each day and was intrigued that so many young children could be engaged in lessons on their own, without the obvious direction of an adult. She also found it amazing that the children didn’t swarm the door when new people entered – these young children were actually focused on their work. That was in 1973 and she’s been amazed ever since!

Dede began assisting at the Bilingual Montessori School of Paris and later completed her Montessori AMI training at the Montessori Training Center of New Jersey where she studied under Lakshmi Kripalani, one of Montessori’s translators and protégées. In 1978 she moved to Boulder, founded Mapleton Montessori and the rest is history!

Anna Applebaum
Anna has been working in Montessori schools since 2002. She received her B.A. in Sociology from the University of California at Santa Cruz. Originally from California, she moved to Colorado to study yoga, and fell in love with the Montessori philosophy while assisting in a classroom. She is an avid yoga practitioner and brings the concepts of whole child (body, mind and spirit) into her classroom. Anna’s circle times are filled with many songs, movement games and yoga that the children love. She is also fascinated with the natural world and inspires the children’s curiosity of the earth and all it’s creatures. She brings a strong sense of community to her classroom through a foundation of grace and courtesy lessons. Her profound respect for the children shows in all of her interactions.

Susan Leibfritz
Susan moved to Colorado with her family in 1986. While searching for a preschool for her young son, she discovered a Montessori school right in her neighborhood. During a visit to the school, she was amazed not only at how well the class flowed with a room full of three to six year olds but also at how effortlessly the teachers seemed to work in the classroom. They moved through the joyful buzz of work and activity in a relaxed, almost unnoticed way.

Susan has a degree in English (with an emphasis on elementary education) from Cal Poly University in San Luis Obispo, California and received her Montessori training in Boulder at the Montessori Education Center of the Rockies. One of her areas of interest is teaching children to be stewards of the earth by helping them to love nature and the amazing world around them. She works with them on taking care of their own bodies through nutrition, exercise and laughter because stewardship frequently starts with care of oneself.

Terri Todd
Terri moved home to Casper, Wyoming after receiving her B.S. in Environmental Studies with a minor in Art from Utah State University. While working at the Wyoming State Children’s Home, she became acquainted with the Montessori method and was inspired to see children engaged and learning on their own. In 1979 Terri attended the Washington Montessori Institute in Washington DC with trainers who had trained under Maria Montessori. She taught at several schools over the years in Wyoming and Colorado but when she found Mapleton Montessori School in 1988, she says, “I knew I was home.” Terri’s enthusiasm for art and gardening is woven into the daily life of her classroom. She also role models the importance of taking care of each other, our planet and ourselves.

Dona Bhavani
Dona has her B.A. in Contemplative Psychology from Naropa University in Boulder, but it was during a two-year sojourn in India that she discovered Montessori. She was inspired by the incredible opportunity Montessori offers the young child to unify his body and mind during the critical period of the absorbent mind. Some important features of her teaching style include: cultivating peaceful, loving relations internally and externally, connecting with our interconnectedness via an underlying peace curriculum and creating extensive units of study based on Montessori’s cosmic view of education where individual topics fit into a meaningful larger pattern. Dona integrates her love of art, music, yoga and mid-eastern dance into all areas of her classroom.