Siblings ride in style to Montessori school in Portsmouth

Ride in fire truck was a raffle prize in school fund-raiser

By Jim McGaw
Posted 5/21/18

PORTSMOUTH — Not many kids can say they rode to school in a fire truck.

Grayson and Ariella Pimental can.

They met at the fire station with Lt. Allen Levesque and Firefighter Ismael …

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Siblings ride in style to Montessori school in Portsmouth

Ride in fire truck was a raffle prize in school fund-raiser

Posted

PORTSMOUTH — Not many kids can say they rode to school in a fire truck.

Grayson and Ariella Pimental can.

They met at the fire station with Lt. Allen Levesque and Firefighter Ismael Biurrun last Thursday morning and then were transported for a 15-minute ride to the Sea Rose Montessori Co-Op School on the grounds of St. Mary’s Episcopal Church. The ride was one a raffle prize during a recent school fund-raiser at the Easton Beach Rotunda in Newport. 

Grayson, 5, is a kindergarten student at the school. Ariella, 7, is not a student at Sea Rose but will be attending this fall when the school adds more grades.

Sea Rose, which opened last September and is currently housed within St. Mary’s parish house, will be moving to the thrift shop building next door. The thrift shop operation is closing to make way for the growing school.

The school was founded by a parents’ cooperative, said Kathleen Daily, one of the school's lead teachers along with Sherry Emrich. 

“They wanted an alternative for elementary in Portsmouth, but they needed a kindergarten that fit in with what they were thinking. They researched Montessori, and they came from Waldorf-inspired Bloom (in Middletown),” she said. 

Starting a new school was challenging, but the small group of parents was undaunted she said.

“They were the catalyst and they did all the work,” Ms. Daily said. “In the beginning we thought it would be so hard and it will never work, but no. They just hung in there and did everything.”

The school started classes for pre-K and kindergarten last September and will welcome elementary-aged students later this year. “We started with 10 families and now we have 14 families. Next year we’ll probably have 25 families,” said Ms. Daily.

The school is moving to the other building “because St. Mary’s really wanted us to stay,” she said.

Keeping with the Montessori philosophy, Sea Rose features multi-age classrooms, hands-on learning, a focus on individualized work and a relaxed academic setting. The first school was founded in Rome in 1907 by Maria Montessori.

Portsmouth has one other Montessori school: The Children’s School at 1985 East Main Road, which has been around since 1985.

For more information about Sea Rose Montessori, click here.

Sea Rose Montessori School, Portsmouth Fire Department

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Meet our staff
Jim McGaw

A lifelong Portsmouth resident, Jim graduated from Portsmouth High School in 1982 and earned a journalism degree from the University of Rhode Island in 1986. He's worked two different stints at East Bay Newspapers, for a total of 18 years with the company so far. When not running all over town bringing you the news from Portsmouth, Jim listens to lots and lots and lots of music, watches obscure silent films from the '20s and usually has three books going at once. He also loves to cook crazy New Orleans dishes for his wife of 25 years, Michelle, and their two sons, Jake and Max.