Klahanie School
About
Klahanie School is a nonprofit, AMS Verified Montessori Antibias Year Round School serving early learners ages 2.5yrs-6yrs (Kindergarten) and High School/College Internships. Klahanie School is where people wear their slippers and boots, becoming practitioners and hands on advocates of equity, kindness and inclusion. Klahanie School vision is empowering students and interns to form confidences, connections of support required to adapt in the ever changing world through calm, resiliency and self-world community care. Our Mission We acknowledge and recognize that we are on the ancestral lands and traditional home of the sx̌ʷəbabš Coast Salish Native People, the first people of Vashon Island. This land was their home for millennia before Euro-American voyagers and settlers came and they were forcibly removed from these lands and relocated onto neighboring Reservations, including Puyallup, Nisqually, Squaxin Island, and Muckleshoot. Vashon Island is their traditional home and their historical relationship with the land continues today. We honor the island itself and the sx̌ʷəbabš people past and present. We daily honor the land we are able to learn from as earth stewards. Young children-learners hold a unique and inspiring level of empathy and love. We want to nurture that precious gift to the fullest degree with the introduction and later practice of holding space with people outside of the family experience. With the practice of presence, acceptance and nurturing while a child experiences new levels of human emotion and developmental learning processes, a safe environment in our school’s Montessori founded early education program is created so children may feel calm in their explorations, forming trust and a thriving learning environment. Founded in our Montessori pedagogy of acceptance, welcome and encouragement for early learners to celebrate their unique, authentic learning pathways, and dive into their own process and practices. Students form anchoring social-emotional intelligence benchmarks in our daily focuses. Using the Montessori pedagogy foundation of "follow the child" and each learner's observed needs, an intentional learning environment inside and outside is created. The environment is prepared to be developmentally appropriate and interesting while nurturing the creative and problem solving methods. And encourages children to move about at will, making choices and building skills toward independence and resiliency. Montessori education supports children in choosing intentional and challenging work of their own interest, leading to engagement, intrinsic motivation, sustained attention, and the development of accountability to oneself and others in the formation of community definition and daily practice of implementation. The availability, continuity, consistency and presentation of enticing, self-correcting materials in specified curricular areas with teachers who serve as guides and mentors in respect focused side-by-side exploration of learning. Teachers experience ongoing learning and trainings during intersession breaks. Early learners at Klahanie School are encouraged in a nurturing method to actively explore the world at their pace. Klahanie is the Native American, Chinook meaning, “enjoyment of the outside world.” Our intention is to instill a love of life and the confidence necessary to explore our ever-changing world.
Phone
(206) 491-9465
Address
8107 SW 201st Street Vashon WA. 98070
Hours
Please visit our website for updated hours and the Year Round school calendar.
Payment
Monthly tuition, Scholarships-financial aid available