Maddox Layne, 2, washes a glass window practicing his left to right motions at Oak Hill Montessori in Tyler Monday May 1, 2017. (Sarah A. Miller/Tyler Morning Telegraph)

Cumberland Academy charter school has announced a partnership with Oak Hill Montessori School that will allow a Montessori-based education from age 2 through high school.

The $5.2 million acquisition will create The Leadership Academy, a partnership consisting of a tuition-based private primary school for ages 2 through 4 that leads into a free public charter elementary, beginning this fall.

The acquisition will not affect Oak Hill’s Longview campus.

The Montessori education at Oak Hill will remain the same, but when students reach kindergarten, they will have a tuition-free continuation of the program that will take them through sixth grade at the existing Oak Hill campus.

In seventh grade, students will move to the current Cumberland Academy Middle School campus, where they will be in a separate, Montessori-based classroom environment. They will continue on the Montessori track within Cumberland Academy through high school.

The partnership creates the first Montessori-based charter school in East Texas, and the first to go through high school.

Cumberland founder Dr. Jim Cotton said the journey toward this partnership began more than two years ago.

“The way we started this school was really an initiative of the Cumberland Academy staff. All of us are interested in early education,” he said. “We felt Cumberland needed to get involved.”

Cotton and his team looked at many options, but Oak Hill was already established and successful, which made it an ideal prospect for partnership, he said.

At the same time, Oak Hill founder Louise Dyer was interested in finding ways to encourage artistic expression and extracurricular activities for students as they reached elementary age.

Dyer said her goal is to build leaders from an early age and equip them with skills they can carry through to adulthood.

“You allow the child to unfold, they see the leaders that are older and want to do what they’re doing,” she said. “It develops that drive to want to know more, to want to learn. They take more responsibility for their education.”

Montessori education focuses on multidimensional development of the child in which children are given choices and freedom, within limits, throughout the school day. Oak Hill currently takes students as young as 18 months and puts them in a collaborative learning environment that encourages responsibility and leadership. The older students help teach the younger ones and teachers guide them through hands-on learning exercises.

On a typical day at Oak Hill, students run through dozens of activities in the classroom, emphasizing responsibility and different sets of skills. A 6-year-old working on his multiplication tables invites his 4-year-old friend over to the table and begins walking her through the process. Meanwhile a 3-year-old grabs an apron and begins washing the windows he can reach, a skill that teaches him to work on a baseline that will later translate into writing skills.

Students quietly focus on their tasks and helping each other with lessons, from learning to measure and pour to practicing using tools and connecting cursive letters.

“When you’re looking at the adult, what skills do you want them to have?” Dyer said. “When you give a child more responsibility and maturity, they exhibit a greater level of responsibility, maturity, coordination and concentration.”

Oak Hill currently provides a tuition-based elementary program. As a charter school, the Leadership Academy will be funded by the state and be part of the public school system, meaning it will be tuition free for kindergarten and beyond. Leadership Academy students will be required to take state-mandated standardized tests, as all other public schools do.

Cumberland Academy has been a charter school for almost 20 years and has three campuses with a total enrollment of 1,440. The high school currently serves freshmen and sophomores but will add 11th and 12th grades in the next two years.

The Leadership Academy is expecting growth from its current enrollment of 163 to 280 in its first year, with the eventual goal of expanding for as many as 400 students, Cotton said.

In order to accommodate the growth of students, Cumberland soon will be announcing plans to expand the facilities at The Leadership Academy on Oak Hill Boulevard.

Cumberland also will begin construction of the next phases of its high school construction this year, which includes athletic and fine arts facilities.

Enrollment is now open at theleadershipacademytyler.com

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