Our School is Teacher-Led.
Like all Wildflower schools, our team of Teacher-leaders facilitates both the teaching and administering of the school. Teachers-leaders are partners and social entrepreneurs, responsible primarily to themselves and each other for every aspect of the school and its overall success. By preserving a small scale, teacher-leaders are able to make day-to-day decisions that respond to the needs of the children and school-wide decisions that express their own vision in the context of the needs of children, families, and themselves.
Renee Ibanez
Renee Ibanez is a bilingual Early Childhood primary guide certified by both the Association Montessori International USA and the American Montessori Society. She has worked as a lead teacher since 2007. Born and raised in Mexico City and witnessing grave social injustice from an early age, she grew passionate about equality, which led her to attend Law School pursuing a career in international law. When she relocated to the U.S. in 2003 with her family, she volunteered introducing art appreciation to elementary children in public schools. It was then when she discovered the Montessori method of education and found her calling guiding young children in the primary classroom.
Katie Blunden
Katie Blunden discovered the magic of Montessori during her first years as a mother. Initially self-taught, she began using a Montessori-at-home approach that greatly helped foster independence in her young children. After completing the AMI assistant’s course at Washington Montessori Institute, she began assisting in Montessori toddler, primary, and lower elementary classrooms. She later attended Montessori Northwest where she received her diploma as an AMI Primary guide.
Meet Our Board.
Bret Morgan
Treasurer
Bret Morgan is a dad, entrepreneur and community builder with a background in software engineering. He is the founder of Asbury Fresh, Bell Works Fresh & Fresh Life, a series of regional farmers & makers markets with a mission to enliven and enrich local communities through pop-up shopping experiences. Bret is also the co-founder of Cowerks, a coworking community of over 400 startups and small businesses spread across three locations in Monmouth County, The Jersey Shore Tech Meetup & Asbury Agile, an annual technology conference. He has spent most of his professional life lending support to the growth of communities ranging from punk rock and DIY music, to tech & startups to local makers and food purveyors. He fundamentally believes that by bringing people together with the purest of intentions we are able to not only go further as individuals but also be more fulfilled. Bret enjoys practicing and teaching Ashtanga Yoga, travelling to the more remote locations of the globe, cooking plant-based Southeast Asian cuisine and trying to keep up with his sons Atlas and Rylo.
Jamie Rue
Secretary
Jamie is the CEO and founder of Rising Tide Montessori. Her career in Montessori education is now in its third decade, and includes more than 10 years as a classroom teacher and school administrator and over 10 years as a trainer of teachers. She is an Association Montessori Internationale (AMI) trainer, examiner, and consultant at the elementary level. She has coached teachers and advised administrators at schools around the world, and she has presented at conferences and for parents throughout the United States, and in New Zealand, Australia, and Canada. She also regularly participates in the podcast All Things Montessori. Jamie holds an AMI 6-12 diploma from the Washington Montessori Institute, an AMI 3-6 diploma from the Montessori Training Center Northeast, an M.Ed. from Loyola University Maryland, and a B.A. in English and Religion from Augustana University (Sioux Falls, SD). Born and raised on an island in the Pacific Northwest, Jamie now lives in the Washington, DC, region. She loves to read, cook, and travel with her family in her spare time.