Tuckaway-Harbor will offer Montessori program

Tuckaway Child Development and Early Education Centers has acquired Hanover Montessori School and plans to offer Montessori classes in all five of its day-care centers in the Richmond area.

The Hanover Montessori School will move from Lee Davis Road in Mechanicsville to the Tuckaway center on Cold Harbor Road in Mechanicsville.

The first Montessori program at Tuckaway will begin with a summer session June 29, said Beverly Graubics, who owns Tuckaway with her husband, Karlis.

Tuckaway expects to expand the Montessori program next year and eventually offer classes in all its centers, she said yesterday.

"We will continue our regular program," Beverly Graubics said. The Montessori classes "will be another option for parents."

The couple began Tuckaway in 1971 on Tuckaway Lane in western Henrico. Tuckaway now operates two other centers in western Henrico, the Mechanicsville location and one near Carytown, and it plans to open a center in the Varina area of eastern Henrico, Graubics said.

Tuckaway uses developmentally appropriate teaching methods to educate children at their own levels and help them develop emotionally, intellectually, physically and socially, she said.

In 2004, Christy Yeadon opened Hanover Montessori School, which is affiliated with the American Montessori Society. The Montessori method also emphasizes a developmentally appropriate approach, with a focus on academics, cultural arts, practical lifeworks, and social and emotional development, Yeadon said.

The school offers a single class to children ages 3 through 6. The children stay in the class for three years, with the older children helping the younger children develop. "There is this familylike social camaraderie," she said.

Yeadon wanted to expand the program, but Hanover zoning regulations limited her class size to 12 students at the Lee Davis location, she said.

She met the Graubicses at a Hanover Chamber of Commerce dinner last year and recently approached them about offering a Montessori class at the Tuckaway center.

Graubics said the new class, to be known as The Montessori Academy at Tuckaway, will be able to accommodate up to 25 children at the Mechanicsville center. Yeadon will be the director of Tuckaway's Montessori program and oversee its expansion, Graubics said.

Contact John Hoke at (804) 649-6344 or .