A Former MMS Teacher'sTestimonial- Teachers are Terrified of Ms. Van Aken

I worked at Milwaukee Montessori School as a teacher and chose to leave my position for several reasons. Firstly, Ms. Van Aken creates a hostile work environment at Milwaukee Montessori School. I was frequently belittled in front of colleagues and my students; on at least one occasion, children could hear Ms. Van Aken screaming obscenities at faculty in a nearby classroom. Ms. Van Aken also sent me emails filled with obscenities in response to fairly innocuous questions or concerns.

Furthermore, this hostile work environment is affecting the children at MMS. Teachers are terrified of Ms. Van Aken and are teaching in fear of her judgment and criticism. I saw teachers actually doing children’s work for them so that it could be “perfect” enough for Ms. Van Aken. MMS calls itself a Montessori school, but they are not implementing the Montessori method with much fidelity at all.

Ms. Van Aken made many discriminatory comments regarding students and their families to me and to other faculty. One parent confided in me that she felt that Ms. Van Aken had discriminated against them during their time at MMS. Although I was not privy to these conversations, I believe I had at least two students pushed out because they were too "difficult" for MMS. To my knowledge, no accommodations were made for these students in order to help them succeed at the school. In fact, when one of those students became dysregulated, I was not given any strategies to assist that child in the classroom and was instead told to bring them down to the office as a punishment.

I have spoken to both the Department of Justice and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in regards to the pervasive discrimination and hostile work environment I witnessed while at Milwaukee Montessori School. It is unacceptable that these practices are continuing under Ms. Van Aken's watch.

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