Adolescent Program Director Announcement
May 15, 2015

Dear MSLF Community,

We are pleased to tell you that we have succeeded in filling the role of Montessori School of Lake Forest Adolescent Program Director. Since Ann Jordahl left this position in order to lead the school in June, 2013, we have conducted two formal searches and directly approached several individuals, in ongoing efforts to fill this position. We are grateful to Bev Adamczyk who agreed to temporarily direct the Adolescent Program during the 2013-14 school year.

We searched carefully for an individual to fulfill our Adolescent Program’s distinctive criteria, including:

  • A wide range of experience in working with young people; developing and leading programs; teaching, collaborating with colleagues, students, and parents; expanding enrollment; managing critical issues-all skills necessary to ground the Adolescent Program.
  • The capacity to continue to build our Adolescent Program by developing local, urban, national, and international connections both within the Montessori community and within the larger worlds of higher education, sustainability, arts and culture, and service.
  • The ability to engage in critical thinking across the disciplines; offer sound and well-proven leadership skills; collaborate with and support parents; and serve as a good guide for students as they prepare to enter high school and college, and to develop part-time and full-time job opportunities.
  • Teaching experience with a wide range of youth; familiarity with Montessori education; possessing an advanced degree; the insight to engage successfully with the challenges of Montessori philosophy, and the maturity to collaborate well with our high performing faculty, our sophisticated parent body, and our richly varied and high-potential student body.

After a 3 year search, MSLF has appointed Stephen Sennott , a teacher and youth mentor who worked at Illinois Institute of Technology, where he served 14 years as Assistant Dean and adjunct professor in the College of Architecture. Steve is already known to many in the MSLF community, most recently as a Chicago tour guide for the Adolescent Program, a former committee volunteer, an alumni parent, and the spouse of Ann Jordahl.

Steve’s application and qualifications indisputably established him as our single strongest candidate for the position. His deep familiarity with Maria Montessori’s collaborative approach to education and community has informed his teaching, advising, and administrative tasks. The Adolescent Program students will be well served, too, by his experience as a mentor for Chicago-area middle school and high school students engaged in the Chicago Architecture Foundation’s Saturday Studios and as the director of IIT’s summer high school workshop, “Experiment in Architecture.”

We have worked carefully with MSLF’s Board of Directors and have pursued this opportunity fully aware of the challenge and promise it offers.  Per their guidance, candidate interviews were conducted by a team. The selection process prompted a useful review of procedures, and to maintain the integrity of our employee communications we have added a formal whistleblower policy to the Employee Handbook. In addition, Ann has taken steps to insure that Steve’s formal report and review process will be conducted by another employee than herself.

We are confident that Steve will foster the MSLF Adolescent Program as a teacher, mentor, and program director. To this end, he will seek to develop relationships with the full MSLF community beginning this spring, before he formally joins the MSLF faculty this fall. He will be reaching out to faculty and students and there will be opportunities to meet him during the spring and summer. Please feel free to invite him to events or to contact him with ideas or questions.

We are fully committed to maintaining the Montessori School of Lake Forest as an open learning community, focused on serving the parent-child-teacher triad, on behalf of all of your children. To that end, we seek to hire only the very best in faculty. Please contact either of us with comments, questions, or concerns. As you know, the door is always open.

Best wishes to all of you, and please join us in welcoming Steve to MSLF.

Ann Jordahl
Executive Director
Tom Zengeler
President, Board of Directors

Graduation Message from Head of School, Hope Allegretti

By Teresa Pavelich • June 10, 2026
Hello everyone! Thank you for being here today to celebrate this year’s stepping up and graduating students. This day is always a bittersweet one as we celebrate all their accomplishments and all their hard work while also preparing to say good-bye as they join new classrooms and embrace new opportunities ahead. They’ve earned their key of knowledge, completed their Elementary cycle, and are graduating from the Adolescent Program and are moving on to high school. As hard as it is to say good-bye as these students step up or graduate, we do so with the confidence that they are better prepared for life having received the gift of a Montessori education. It’s been a true pleasure this past week watching key recipients receive their key of knowledge and wear it proudly for all to see. I have loved hearing all the speeches from our 3rd and 6th year stepping up students and our 8th year graduates as they share their fondest memories of MSLF and offer thanks to all those they are grateful to. I love hearing what memories they will take away from MSLF with them. Baking in their Primary classroom, building forts in Elementary, finding a turtle on a nature hike, learning to play the ukulele in music, visiting Nature’s Classroom with their classmates, performing in the school play, a research project they worked on with their friends, selling coffee at Friday Markets in AP. These are just a few of the memories shared by stepping up and graduating students over the years. These are all incredible memories to have from school and to be able to take with you. But what I’ve come to realize is these are really more than just memories. These are significant, impactful moments that will likely, in some way, shape our students’ lives. They may not know it yet. But 5, 10, 20 years from now, when these memories are reflected on and shared again, they will become part of each student's legacy—a collection of experiences, values, and lessons that help define who they are and how they move through the world. And just as important, they become part of MSLF’s legacy as well. Each graduating class leaves behind something meaningful: traditions, friendships and memories that become woven into the story of our school. The theatre student will remember the feeling of performing in their first school play. The entrepreneur will remember the excitement of planning for their first school market. The new parent will share their love of nature with their child as they remember nature hikes at MSLF. These memories are moments of self-discovery. Opportunities for our students to learn about themselves. Experiences that help guide their future. These memories will be their compass as they enter high school, college and beyond, guiding them towards a joyful life. And all those they thank are the ones who helped guide them towards that joy. Their teachers, their parents, their peers will have all impressed upon them knowledge and experiences that have helped them learn, problem solve, adapt and teach others, all of which are life skills that any of us need to succeed. They enter the world well prepared for what will come next thanks to the memories they have made here. And I hope to be here long enough to hear you share them again someday as you set out to do great things. So, Graduates, no matter where your compass guides you, I hope you will always remember MSLF as we will always remember you. YOU are our memories. YOU are part of our legacy. And YOU have helped shape our future, just as MSLF has helped shape yours. So, thank you!  Please join me in congratulating all our stepping up and graduating students today. Congratulations graduates!

Human Tendencies: Why Montessori Still Feels So Relevant

By Teresa Pavelich • October 21, 2025
From curiosity to self-control, Montessori aligns with the human tendencies that help children grow, adapt, and flourish.