Barrie School is an independent school for all grades of pre-collegiate education located in an unincorporated area of Montgomery County, Maryland, outside of Washington, D.C. The school is within the Glenmontcensus designated place, has a Silver Spring postal address, and is in close proximity to Layhill. Barrie School is a nonprofit school with 501 status. Barrie School has three divisions located on the same campus. The Lower School, which serves children from age 18 months through fifth grade, is Montessori-based. The Middle and Upper Schools are college preparatory, however, teachers typically favor experiential learning over lectures. The students and faculty are on a first-name basis and the environment is one of openness and mutual respect. The student population of around 300 students enjoys a green campus, with two new modern buildings, a pool, and two ponds. With an average class size of around 18, teachers can integrate the natural setting into the curriculum through hands-on experiments or holding class outside. Barrie has an equestrian team for both the Middle School and the Upper School. Both teams compete on the weekends. The Equestrian Director, Sue Wentzel, just started working for Barrie this year. The riding team was awarded 3rd place last year out of multiple teams.
The school was founded in 1932 by Frances Littman Seldin as a preschool called the Peter Pan School, located at 1604 Park Road NW in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood of the District of Columbia. A native of New York, Seldin was a graduate of Columbia University.
After unsuccessfully attempting to move to 1615 Manchester Lane NW in the Brightwood neighborhood, the school moved to 801 Fern Street NW in the Takoma neighborhood in 1939. A zoning variance to establish a school in the residential neighborhood, which was opposed by the Takoma Park Citizens Association, was granted by the District of Columbia Board of Zoning Adjustment. The new location was a urban campus. The name was changed to Barrie School when upper grade classes were added, memorializing author J. M. Barrie, creator of the Peter Pan story. Barrie was described by Mrs. Seldin as a progressive, country day school, directly influenced by the work of John Dewey, Maria Montessori, Alfred Adler, and Anna Freud. It was an anomaly among private schools in Washington, D.C., for much of its history because of Mrs. Seldin's then-controversial beliefs about integration, creating a socioeconomically diverse population, and her decision to offer a year-round program and extended hours to serve working parents. Although the name Montessori was rarely used in describing Barrie during those years, the program was heavily influenced by Maria Montessori's philosophy and program, including practical life, integrated learning and project-based collaborative learning, multiple age class groups, and a culture of partnership between students, parents, and staff.
Move to Montgomery County
In the 1950s, Mrs. Seldin purchased a country estate on Layhill Road in rural Montgomery County, Maryland. The school began operating there in 1958. The new site was added to continue the school's mission of teaching in a natural setting. The Barrie Day Camp moved to the property. In 1976, the Fern Place campus was closed and the remaining Middle and Lower School classes were moved to the Layhill Road property, with room for 265 students. The Upper School was closed from 1974 through 1982 as a result of Ms. Seldin's death and the need to sell the Fern Place campus to cover estate taxes, and a building moratorium imposed on new construction in Montgomery County during that period that created a cap on enrollment at the Layhill Road campus. The high school was reopened in 1982 in time for the 50th anniversary of Barrie School's founding was celebrated with the reopening of the Upper School in the former Argyle Junior High School building on Bel Pre Road. That year, Barrie's Upper School was formally recognized by the American Montessori Society as the first Montessori High School in the United States. In that year the Institute for Advanced Montessori Studies was authorized by the American Montessori Society and Maryland State Commission of Higher Education to offer the first formal teacher preparation for secondary Montessori educators. Classes were held until new buildings on the Layhill Road campus were completed in the summer of 1991, bringing the Primary, Lower and Upper Elementary, Middle, and Upper School students together on one campus again.
Institute for Advanced Montessori Studies
In 1980, the Institute for Advanced Montessori Studies, offering graduate-level teacher education programs, was founded on Barrie School’s Layhill Road campus to provide bridge between the traditional and Montessori schoolsof education. The training programs have been completed by individuals from the United States, Canada, Trinidad, China, and South Korea.
2009 trip to China
In 2009, a group of 21 Barrie students and 3 teachers were quarantined in Guizhou, China during their Extended Study Tour week program. There had been a passenger on the same flight that had been suspected of having Swine Flu, so the group was quarantined in a four-star hotel in Kaili. They were later found to have no symptoms of the virus and were released.
