The Montessori Children’s Academy (MCA) opened the doors of its Madison, New Jersey Campus to 45 students in September of 1999. Rapid successful growth necessitated the addition of more classes and brought the number of children enrolled to more than 100 by the next year. As enthusiasm for traditional Montessori programs continued, MCA opened another campus in the adjoining town of Chatham at the start of the 2003 school year. Shortly after the addition of the Chatham campus, the decision was made to introduce an Elementary Program so that MCA could fulfill the wishes of its parents for an educational path that went beyond its toddler through kindergarten offerings.
MCA expanded once again to meet the growing needs of another neighboring community when, in 2007, it opened its largest educational facility in Short Hills. In 2010, it relocated the Madison Campus to a brand new and much larger facility, located in Convent Station. Looking again to expand its base offerings, in 2011 MCA, through its subsidiary company MCA for Creative Learning (CL), began offering therapeutic Speech/Language and OT services to those children that would benefit from including that additional support as part of their education.
In 2012, MCA partnered with an enrichment company, LEAF Approach to Enrichments (LEAF). With LEAF, MCA can now offer a wide range of enrichments for all ages within the communities it serves. The very young are taught with morning Parent/Child classes, school age children are offered programs after their regular sessions end, while evening/weekend classes are geared primarily toward adults. All of these add-on programs are based on the Montessori approach to learning.
At present, MCA serves almost 500 families and offers programs for toddlers through elementary students. The demands of today’s world make a Montessori education more important than ever before. MCA plans to be at the forefront of this approach to learning by expanding into new communities as well as by increasing its offerings with other synergistic services, enabling MCA to be a leader in early childhood education. The Montessori Children’s Academy is affiliated with the American Montessori Society and is also a member of the New Jersey Montessori Administrator’s Council.