City: Albuquerque, NM

Category: Relocation

Telephone: (505) 242-3033

Description: While Escuela del Sol Elementary teaches kids from grades one through six, the school also has primary classrooms for ages 3 to 6, and a Toddler Community for tots from 18 months to age 3. Escuela del Sol is an independent nonprofit, founded in 1968. It uses the Montessori method to maximize children’s potential and stimulate their inherent passion for learning, and the school asserts that its teaching method not only achieves academic excellence but fosters creative thinking and self-direction in the child. Students are educated in multiage classrooms, in a collaborative rather than competitive environment, with at least one trained and certified Montessori teacher in each class. Head of School Friedje vanGils will have been leading Escuela del Sol for 30 years in 2010, and the school is also an internship site for the American Montessori Society. The school’s campus is on the site of the Harwood Art Center, which is owned and operated by Escuela del Sol. This registered historic red-brick neoclassical Revival-style building housed the Harwood Girls School—a Methodist boarding school—between 1925 and 1976. Now the Harwood Art Center is a community arts center and gallery, with programs that include visual arts, concerts, theater, and dance performances. Most of the main building is given over to the arts center, and the school occupies the north wing and other historic and recently constructed buildings on the site, including Hudd Hall, built in 1940. Students participate in a number of community outreach programs, and there is a natural relationship with the arts and the local neighborhood via the Harwood Art Center.