{"id":393569,"date":"2026-09-08T10:46:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T10:46:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/393569\/"},"modified":"2026-09-08T10:46:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T10:46:14","slug":"st-christophers-renovation-welcomes-back-students-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/393569\/","title":{"rendered":"St. Christopher\u2019s renovation welcomes back students | Education"},"content":{"rendered":"

Students at St. Christopher\u2019s By-the-Sea Montessori school<\/a> had a special surprise when they arrived for the first day of the year, as their school was just renovated.<\/p>\n

“My first reaction was ‘Wow, this is amazing,” said fifth grader Earay Khan. Fellow fifth grader Umberto Posada Pinto added, ” I was happy and excited. We have the library on the same floor, I like that.” Fernando Saldivia , also a fifth grade student shared his feelings,” Awesome because the classroom is ten times bigger. I like the class because it’s way bigger and has more things to do.”<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the Montessori classroom, the environment plays a critical role in the learning experience,\u201d Head of School Eleanor Yee<\/a> said. \u201cThe environment is intentionally prepared to foster independence, curiosity and confidence, allowing children the freedom to explore, make choices and take ownership of their learning. Our new upper elementary space is made up of different learning areas to allow our students to have explicit instructional time with their teacher, as well as flexibility for students to have autonomy in their learning and movement through the Montessori curriculum.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat began more than a year and a half ago as a simple idea, to remove our portable classroom and create a permanent space within our existing building, quickly grew into an exciting opportunity to reimagine St. Christopher\u2019s by the Sea,\u201d explained Cecilia Braham, school administrator and the renovation\u2019s project manager.<\/p>\n

\"st-chris-school-renovation-entrance\"<\/p>\n

One of the entrances to the renovated Key Biscayne St. Christopher’s Montessori School.<\/p>\n

\u201dThrough creative planning and collaboration, we redesigned our spaces with functionality, practicality and a better balance among our classrooms in mind. One of the greatest challenges of any school construction project is time; with essentially only the summer months to complete the work, careful planning and phasing are critical. We are incredibly proud to have completed Phase 1 on schedule this summer, and we cannot wait to welcome our students back to campus. Seeing their excitement as they discover the new sidewalk and bicycle parking area, administrative offices, library space, and beautifully redesigned classrooms will be the most rewarding part of this entire project. This renovation is more than an improvement to our building, it is an investment in our students, our school community, and the future of St. Christopher\u2019s by the Sea.\u201d<\/p>\n

School board chair Frank Caplan emphasized: \u201cThere\u2019s nothing like living in a space to illuminate how the space might be better used. The new building at St. Christopher\u2019s not only expanded the physical plant but also catalyzed space-planning ideas. This centered on students\u2019 experience and the learning environment, and fostered some residual improvements as well, including better use of the outdoors, better separation and flow for drop-off and pick-up, and better placement for administrative functions.\u201d<\/p>\n

This was phase one of reimagining the space. Teams are now planning phase 2 for summer 2027.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are excited for our students to experience their new environment and welcome them back to another year of wonder,\u201d Yee said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Students at St. Christopher\u2019s By-the-Sea Montessori school had a special surprise when they arrived for the first day…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":393570,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[113,157033,126,45312,123,125,124,157034,157032,140653,61329],"class_list":["post-393569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-education","tag-eleanor-yee","tag-key-biscayne","tag-local-schools","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news","tag-montessori-classroom","tag-montessori-school","tag-school-renovation","tag-st-christophers-by-the-sea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=393569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393569\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/393570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}