Local Bassist Buys Missoula School

The bass player from Missoula indie rock band the Magpies and a local linguist have teamed up to buy the Sunflower Montessori school.

Samantha Pollington rocks bass and vocals for the Magpies and Evgeniya Strakhova speaks and teaches several languages. They are both also Montessori-certified teachers who helped lead instruction at Sunflower, an established Montessori school at 721 S. 6^th Street West here in Missoula.

The ladies bought the business from its former owners in early June and were on hand when the summer session began days later. There have been no staffing changes or tuition changes, and the school still accepts up to 48 students ages 3-6.

Montessori schools differ from traditional day cares in that they follow a teaching method developed in the early 1900s by an Italian doctor, Maria Montessori. Montessori education is based on self-directed activity, hands-on learning, and collaborative play. Children in Montessori classrooms make their own creative choices for learning, while facilitators offer age-appropriate activities to guide the process.

Samantha and Evgeniya have been through the year-long Montessori certification process and had been at Sunflower for years when they began to talk about opening their own school. Not long after that, Sunflower’s owners surprised them by asking if they’d like to buy the business.

Samantha originally pursued theater in school and was a para-educator in Clinton before discovering Sunflower and getting hooked on the Montessori method. But her first day in certification school was not what she imagined. She explains,

“I was so irritated that I had paid money for someone to show me how to play with toys,” Pollington said. “But soon it sunk in that this was different. I wish I had been educated this way. I struggled with math in school and the way they taught it here blows my mind.”

Evgeniya, meanwhile, was born in Russia and learned English starting at age 8. She earned a degree in linguistics and foreign language learning and was teaching at a school in St. Petersburg when a friend who was working in China raved about the opportunities available to English teachers there. Evgeniya settled in Shenzhen, China, where she taught to students from age 2 to high school, that's where she met her husband and together they had a son. In 2013, the family moved to her husband’s hometown of Helena, and not long after that settled in Missoula.

After securing work permits, Evgeniya started looking for a job in Missoula, a remembers clearly a photo on Sunflower’s web site showing the home-like setting and collaborative teaching environment.

“When I walked in, it was so different from the schools I had worked in before,” she said.

 

The two new owners won't be making any big changes at the Sunflower school and don’t plan to go beyond 48 students, but they do have plenty of ideas for the future. Students already participate in community service projects – last fall they raked the leaves off of many of their neighbors’ lawns – and Pollington envisions collaborations with the Missoula Food Bank, senior living centers, and more. Samantha says,

 “Sunflower has a great program and we want to continue that."

Congratulations to both ladies for taking on this awesome task and thanks to them for keeping diversity in education strong in our community.