Foundations

Mountain Sun Community School was incorporated as a non-profit organization in May of 2008, and we opened our doors to students in August 2008. Under the founding leadership of Julie Holt and a highly committed Board of Trustees, the school was formed as a parent-driven effort to create a holistic community school integrating the best in educational pedagogies.

At the beginning, Mountain Sun served preschool students, and as the children grew, the school grew with it. Mountain Sun now serves children from age 3 through middle school. Originally located at a local church with a wonderful creek running behind it, the school moved to Keystone Camp for several years before settling into home at Brevard Music Center. Our current campus provides creative and versatile classroom spaces and incredible access to the outdoors on a 180 acre campus of forests, streams, and open spaces.

Our primary purpose as a school is to prepare our children to be engaged learners and compassionate, responsible citizens of the world. We nurture curiosity and passion for learning at the same time we cultivate each child’s sense of care for each other and the world. Ultimately, the pursuit of knowledge and discovery in this manner leads a child to utilize their gifts to become positive contributors to their communities. This is what we mean when we refer to “holistic education.” At Mountain Sun, we serve the whole child’s developmental needs: cognitively, naturally, creatively, emotionally, and socially.

The mission of Mountain Sun Community School is to holistically nurture, challenge, and guide each unique child to discover academic skills using Montessori principles, explore the natural world, create through self-expression, and belong to a collaborative, diverse, and peaceful community.

At Mountain Sun, the teachers are inspired by educational visionaries, by each other, and most of all, by their students. Our students are inspired by their daily work at school, by their peers, by the interactive nature of our school, by their sense of belonging, by the natural world, and by their personal discovery of their strengths and challenges. This is inspired education for the whole child. Our teachers embrace the concept that each student has an innate desire to learn about the world around them, that they learn in their own way, and that learning is organic and dynamic. Therefore, flexibility and creativity is vital for teachers, parents, and children, alike.

We believe it is important to fully attend to children’s social and emotional growth so that, as they grow into adulthood, they have the skillset, desire, and sense of self that will allow them to become authentic in their interactions with others. Our school, along with many others, is a reflection of this growing need to live in harmony with what we believe.