Pat Lafley

Born in Niskayuna, NY, the youngest of four children, Pat has lived lived in Chicago, Cincinnati, and Sleepy Hollow before settling in
White Plains, NY. Pat graduated from Lafayette College in PA with a BA in English, and completed graduate courses  at the New School in NYC and UNH before attending the Northeast Montessori Institute, near Boston for her Early Childhood Montessori Teacher AMS Credential in 1991. Though NEMI was an AMS training program she had the benefit of working with Martha Monahan, an AMI trained Montessori teacher and a proponent of closely following the philosophy Maria Montessori laid out for future Montessori teachers.

 

Pat worked in publishing for five years at Rodale Press in Pennsylvania publishing magazines such asnPrevention, Organic Gardening, Bicycling, and New Shelter as well as books. Once her children were born Pat's interests changed becoming intrigued by  Montessori and through her training she interned at The Cornerstone Montessori School in Stratham, NH, at the school her children were attending, before serving as the lead
teacher for five years at The Children’s House Montessori School.

In 1995, she founded ChildLight Montessori School in Maine in a house with an acre of land used for gardening, raising chickens, sledding, and learning a lot about nature. In 2001, ChildLight began a long, extensive fundraising campaign to build a new solar building for our school. The school community enjoyed new classrooms, that also provided space for parent activities, bone marrow drives, a plein air artist gathering, etc. She has collaborated with other schools and educational leaders serving with groups and on committees

evaluating projects done by children and guiding children to transition from Montessori to conventional school programs.

She retired from ChildLight Montessori School in 2018 when it closed after serving the community for more than tweny-five years.