Student Support

Aidan's Student Support team is here to counsel, tutor, and create strategies to handle challenges for our students and their families.

The team has two components:

The Counseling Office

The Counseling program at Aidan Montessori is designed to teach and promote school-wide emotional intelligence and to provide support towards the social/emotional growth and needs of students and families.

The Counselor at Aidan helps students and families to gain insight and develop strategies around conflict resolution, managing friendship dynamics, and understanding feelings. The tools we use to achieve this include short term counseling to students, running parent education workshops and programs, and providing classroom observations.

In addition to supplementing the Grace and Courtesy lessons students receive from classroom teachers, the school counseling program utilizes social/emotional tools and programs to help facilitate the work of the school counselor.

The Learning Support Office

The Learning Support program at Aidan Montessori is designed to provide additional support to students through one-on-one and small group differentiated learning when appropriate. The support program does not support students with Montessori materials or Montessori lessons, but uses an array of approaches and tools that fit the needs of the student. 

The Learning Support Specialists help students and families gain insight into other practices and strategies concerning learning difficulties. The specialists do not provide parents with a diagnosis and cannot assess learning disabilities. Standardized testing and other assessments are performed by the Learning Support Specialists to identify areas of a particular student's need. Testing data is not entered into the student's record and is only shared with the Learning Support Specialists, teachers, and parents. 

The Learning Support Specialists work with faculty, staff, and families to understand each student's needs, identify community resources (if available), read and translate test results, and suggest strategies for student success. Students may be referred to an outside organization or tutor depending on their needs and availability of support at the school. 

Student Support News and Posts

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Talking About the Birds & the Bees
Talking About the Birds & the Bees

Is the prospect of talking to your children about the birds and the bees daunting? Fear not, School Counselor Courtenay Labson and Aidan parent Betsy Quilligan have got you covered. Tune-in next Tuesday, May 10 at 8 PM for a virtual session on strategies and resources for navigating conversations about puberty, sexuality and reproductive health with your child.

Program Faculty

Olivia Bartley

Olivia Bartley

Learning Support Specialist

Olivia Bartley is Aidan's Learning Support Specialist. She provides assistance in math, reading, language, and executive functioning support for elementary students who need additional assistance. She is trained in Orton-Gillingham’s literacy approach and Lindamood-Bell’s On Cloud Nine math program. Coming from a small town in western Pennsylvania, Olivia always cherished trips outside of her town to new countries and cities, including Washington, DC. She embraced this love for new experiences when she joined the Peace Corps as an English Education Facilitator in Togo, West Africa. In addition to her time as Education Facilitator with the Peace Corps, Olivia has also worked as an assistant teacher and an aftercare teacher for students with special needs.

In her free time, Olivia loves to belt out to musicals, work on the daily sudoku, and cheer on her Pittsburgh Steelers.

Jade Jackson

Jade Jackson

Learning Support Specialist for Literacy

Jade Jackson joins Aidan as a Learning Support Specialist for Literacy with a great deal of experience. In 2016, Jade served an AmeriCorps term with Reading Partners DC after earning her BA in Sociology from The University of North Carolina at Greensboro and working at a non-profit supporting Middle School literacy intervention. Jade has lived a life of service and has volunteered with several organizations, including Peace Corps, to achieve educational equity. During her time at Reading Partners DC, Jade worked one-one with students using an evidence-based literacy curriculum, managed a team of AmeriCorps members to individualize instruction further, and served as the program director, creating a vision for an effective literacy program in 22 partnerships.

Jade loves to get creative through jewelry-making, sculpting, and fashion. She writes letters to loved ones during the quiet moments, reads, and goes outside for a walk. Her favorite movie genre is horror, which stemmed from reading Goosebumps and ghost stories as a child!

Courtenay Labson

Courtenay Labson

School Counselor

Aidan Montessori School is pleased to welcome Courtenay Labson as our new School Counselor. Prior coming to Aidan and completing her Master’s in Social Work, Courtenay spent ten years practicing law in the DC area. She recently completed a two year internship as middle school counselor and social/emotional learning educator at private school in Potomac, MD, specializing in students with learning differences. Courtenay also served as a volunteer mentor and counselor working with adolescents in crisis for several years.

Courtenay is an avid cyclist, both on and off pavement, and also loves long hikes, skiing and cooking. She has three teenage children (including twins), a hound and a cat.