NEW LONDON — On a Friday morning at Strawberry Blossom Montessori, no desks sat in rows and no one stood at the front of the room. Children walked around the primary classroom on their own, each working on something different.
Some made their lunches, carrying glass cups and plates to the table and spreading toppings on crackers. Others took games and sensory objects from the shelves around the room. Next to the adult-sized sink was a smaller one, built for kids.
From the street, the building looks like a traditional red one-room schoolhouse. Inside, it still smells new.
The nonprofit school opened on Main Street last month for children ages 1 to 6, less than a year after breaking ground last November. Families from New London and nearby towns have already filled it.
For Becky and John Swanson, who live down the street, the timing worked out. Before Strawberry Blossom opened, the other school they considered for their daughter, Grace, was in White River Junction, about 35 minutes away.
“We really liked that this one was close to home, and we really liked Liz,” Becky Swanson said. “She’s very warm, and she made us really feel like Grace would do really well here.”
Liz Niehaus, who founded the school and teaches in its primary classroom, said Friday that the region has a huge need for more early education options.
She spent about three years planning the school; for most of that time, it “existed mostly as a promise in my mind,” she said. “It was a conviction of what early childhood education could look like in our community.”
‘There’s a lot of structure’
Montessori is an educational approach developed more than a century ago by Italian physician Maria Montessori. Children of mixed ages share a classroom, choose their own work from materials on the shelves, and move on to new lessons when a teacher sees they’re ready.
“When they are working on something, they get to work on it for as long as they like,” Niehaus said. “I’m meeting them exactly where they are developmentally, and then I’m showing them the next lesson.”
Niehaus said people often assume that means anything goes.
“The truth of it is that there’s a lot of structure, and then we have freedom within that structure,” she said.
Researchers have tried to measure whether the approach works. The largest study so far, published in 2025 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, followed 588 children who entered admission lotteries at 24 public Montessori schools nationwide. Because seats were assigned by lottery, researchers could compare children who got in with similar children who didn’t.
By the end of kindergarten, children offered a Montessori seat scored higher in reading, short-term memory, and understanding what other people think and feel, according to a review of the study by the U.S. Department of Education’s What Works Clearinghouse. The study found no significant difference in math, vocabulary or a measure of self-control. The clearinghouse said the study meets its standards “with reservations” because many families dropped out before it ended.
The researchers also estimated that public Montessori preschool cost about $13,000 less per child over three years than traditional programs.
Montessori programs can run from infancy through high school, but Strawberry Blossom serves children only up to age 6. The nearest Montessori elementary programs are in southern New Hampshire, more than an hour’s drive away. That leaves families choosing between public and private school once their children age out.
Mark and Cat Brito of Sutton have two children at the school: Damian, who just turned 3, and an 18-month-old daughter. Cat Brito said the decision was easy for now.
“At these ages, there’s no public option anyway, so this is a fantastic option,” she said.
What comes next is less clear. Mark Brito said they debate it almost every day.
“We don’t know what the options will be at that time, so we’re just holding off,” Cat Brito said.
Mark Brito said that uncertainty has pushed them toward local school politics.
“We’re unfortunately going to be involved in school board type things, not because we want to,” he said.
Inside the classroom
The glass cups are on purpose, said assistant teacher Grace McMenamin, who grew up in New London.
“Nobody ever wants to give children glass things because they get broken,” McMenamin said. “But if you allow them to learn how to use it properly, they have a lot more capability than we expect.”
Parents said they’re seeing that at home. Becky Swanson said her daughter, who is 2½, surprised her that morning by saying the months of the year.
“I was like, ‘Girl, I didn’t know you knew how to do that,'” she said.
Mark Brito said his 18-month-old daughter recently sat for 15 to 20 minutes spooning corn kernels from one bowl to another without dropping one.
Moving small objects with a spoon is a common exercise in Montessori classrooms. It’s meant to build fine motor skills, the small, precise movements of the hands and fingers that children later use to hold a pencil, button a coat or use a fork.
Cat Brito said their daughter also started putting on her own socks.
“I didn’t know she was capable of doing that,” she said. “We’re learning a lot from the kids as they come home with a new skill or a new focus on doing something.”
Three years in the making
Niehaus, a Dartmouth graduate, started her career as a kindergarten teacher in public schools and later earned a master’s degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She then trained in Montessori in the San Francisco Bay Area.
“You’re trained by a master Montessori teacher,” Niehaus said, “and you learn all the theory of Montessori, which has been around for over 100 years.”
She led a primary classroom in Oakland, California, for several years before moving to New London permanently in 2023.
A school doesn’t need Montessori accreditation to call itself Montessori, Niehaus said. Teachers, though, go through their own certification. McMenamin, the assistant teacher, said her job didn’t require it, but leading a classroom does. She said she’s considering getting certified.
Niehaus first explored opening the school inside St. Andrew’s Church, next door. That didn’t work out, but the Rev. Jay MacLeod, the church’s rector, said he stayed on board, in part because of how Niehaus planned to price it.
“She was making it financially viable across all income levels, including low and moderate income,” MacLeod said.
Niehaus said families pay tuition based on their finances, and the school accepts the New Hampshire Child Care Scholarship.
Construction took about nine months. Aidan Schlotman, a civil engineer with TF Moran, said the biggest challenge was managing stormwater on a small lot. Niehaus thanked donors who helped pay for the building and said the school still has “more work to do” on its fundraising.
The school is part of Wildflower, a national network of small, teacher-led Montessori schools. Hannah Ebert Crocker, a partner at the Wildflower Foundation, said Strawberry Blossom is the network’s first school in New Hampshire, and that it opened nearly full.
Niehaus told the crowd Friday that the school no longer feels like hers.
“It is their school,” she said of the children. “It is our community school.”