CV NEWS FEED // After a Denver-area Byzantine Catholic school announced its impending closing in the fall of 2024, parents and community rallied together to ensure the school could continue. Now, Sophia Montessori School will remain open, with enrollment underway for 2025-’26 school year.
“Our parents rallied together in so many different ways,” administrative assistant Megan Luby told CatholicVote in a Feb. 27 email. “Through their own work with the help of our current director, Pauline Meert, they worked hard to create a new financial model for the school and the main components of that was a move further South to lower rent and accommodate families in that direction.”
She said that school leaders believe that Southern Denver will have more of an interest in the education offered at Sophia Montessori.
The school will now share a campus with Chesterton Academy of Our Lady of Victory, an independent Catholic high school. Luby wrote that the school is very excited about the partnership, as the two have similar missions.
Luby said that the other factor in saving the school was hiring a current student’s grandmother, Jean Finegan, as the director of development. A press release from the school stated that Finegan has years of experience in fundraising.
“I am honored to be called to serve the mission and ministry of Sophia Montessori,” Finegan said. “This authentically Catholic Montessori school is a hidden gem. It is a beautiful model of forming the whole child with the gift of our faith integrated into each experience.”
Sophia Montessori serves children aged 3 to 6 in their primary classroom and offers a homeschool enrichment program for students aged 6 to 9. They also offer Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, a religious education program based in the philosophy of Maria Montessori, an Italian Catholic educator who developed the Montessori method.
“Sophia Montessori Academy is dedicated to serving children and families by inspiring a deep love of the Faith, to assist them in becoming problem solvers, critical thinkers, and fearless leaders,” the school’s mission statement reads.
The school uses a classical curriculum based on the work of Montessori.
The mission statement adds later, “Our mission is to bring the children into relationship with Christ through a way of life based in Truth, Beauty, and Goodness as we lead them to their full God-given potential.”
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