Our Story


Meet our family! 

Vasa, Kerri, Jamie and Noah

     
 

                                                                                         
 



Dragonfly Montessori School is a small family business with big dreams! 

My husband Vasa likes to joke that Dragonfly Montessori School is our 7 year old “new” school. 




        

I always knew that I wanted to be a teacher. After graduating from Rutgers University in 2012, I decided to move to China for a year and get work experience teaching English. Unexpectedly I met Vasa, we started dating, and I decided to stay in China longer than the one year I had initially planned.  

After working at an international school for 2 years, I was really feeling unhappy in my current role. I loved the kids, but I felt that management did not have their best interest at heart. We had a cabinet full of Montessori materials, but the children were not allowed to access the cabinet, and all of the classrooms were bare except for chairs and a whiteboard. It was so frustrating because that’s the complete opposite of the Montessori method! Finally I could not take it any longer, and Vasa and I decided to leave Beijing. He quit his job in hospital management to support me and my dream, and we headed to his hometown to start our own school.
 
           

In 2014 we took a huge risk and opened a Montessori-inspired English Immersion Preschool in his hometown of Jinan, China. Located in a city of 7 million, we were the first and only school to offer full day English Immersion and an authentic Montessori environment. It was challenging because when we first opened, not a lot of people in Jinan could see the benefits of this type of education. Even though we started out very small, it was so rewarding to watch the kids learn English so quickly! What started out as a class of just 3, slowly transformed into a full class, a second location, a waiting list, a kids theatre class, an iphone app, and we were in the process of planning a cultural exchange field trip to Germany. I felt like we had really built something amazing and our little family planned to settle in China for good. 



          





Then COVID happened. 

In December of 2019 we were in the US visiting my family for Christmas when we first heard of the coronavirus. I had just found out that I was pregnant with Noah. We decided to postpone our flight back, which turned into a cancellation, which turned into managing the school from abroad and teaching virtually (with a 12 hour time difference!). Because our school was English immersion based, and I was stuck in the US (first China shut down their borders and then my visa expired because I was too pregnant to travel!), we slowly watched student after student leave the school. After a year of this, no income, a newborn, and so much stress with no end in sight, we made the heartbreaking decision to close our doors for good in June 2021. 




Then we came across the opportunity to continue a wonderful Montessori program here in Nazareth, and I feel like our prayers were answered. Now we have permanently settled in the Lehigh Valley where I grew up. The pandemic changed everyone’s lives, and turned ours upside down, but we are so incredibly lucky to have the support of family, friends, and strangers, (and strangers who became friends), all of whom helped us through a time of such uncertainty. When we were facing the worst and watching helplessly as our business collapsed, we really tried to stay optimistic and grateful, with the hope that if we kept working hard we would make it through -- and I think we finally have!  

   



Dragonflies represent change and transformation. They have flown on this earth for 300 million years, and symbolize the ability to overcome hardship. Dragonfly Montessori School is the continuation of our dream that started in China, transformed into something even better than we imagined. We are really looking forward to putting down roots here in Nazareth and creating a new community!







Tel : 484-553-9535        E-mail: Dragonflymontessorischool@gmail.com     Address:Nazareth Moravian Church, 4 S Main St, Nazareth  
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