MorningStar Montessori School Wisconsin Founder and Staff
MorningStar Montessori School Founder, Vera Brissman (Ms. Vera)
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Founder, Administrator, AMI Guide for Primary and Assistants to Infancy Ms. Brissman is the mother of four children and four grandchildren: Adam, who founded and co-owns his own commercial roofing company, Roofed Right America, and who made the total transformation of our beautiful school environment happen; Sarah, who is an Army Intelligence veteran of the Iraqi Freedom War, has her Master's degree in Accounting, and is a CPA. Paul, who is a U.S. Marine and veteran of the Afghanistan Enduring Freedom War, works for Roofed Right America as a successful sales representative and trained IT person. And Hannah, who is currently working as a kind and dedicated long-time substitute Teacher's Assistant at MorningStar.
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Born and raised in Chicago, Ms. Brissman has worked with children in Montessori schools since 1987 as a Teacher’s Assistant for both the Primary and Elementary environments.
After having moved to Cedarburg, Wisconsin in 1990, Ms. Brissman home-schooled her three older children for ten years.
Between 1992 and 2005, Ms. Brissman completed her training and became accredited to teach all three levels of the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd. Ms. Brissman has also participated as a Training Assistant for the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd through Marquette University.
Several years after the birth of her fourth child, in 2002, Ms. Brissman founded MorningStar Montessori in Cedarburg and established the Board of Directors, of which she holds the office of president.
In 2005, Ms. Brissman graduated from the AMI Montessori Training Center in Phoenix, Arizona, with an AMI Montessori Primary (3-6) accreditation.
In 2011, Ms. Brissman graduated from the AMI Montessori Institute in Denver, Colorado, with an additional AMI Montessori Assistants to Infancy (Birth – 3) accreditation, with the option of teaching parenting classes.
Ms. Brissman graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor's degree in Early Childhood Education from St. Catherine University, and has attained a Master's degree in education through Loyola University.
Ms. Brissman is a member of Phi Kappa Phi and Kappa Gamma Pi.
Ms. Brissman has served the community as an appointed member and Chairperson of the Cedarburg Board of Appeals, community activist, youth T-ball and baseball coach, soccer team manager, Girl Scout Leader, home-school activist and home-school conference workshop leader.
Ms. Brissman, utilizing the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd training, has served her church as a catechist for 9 to 14 year old children and special needs children; she serves as a music minister by singing in the choir and playing the guitar for Masses since 1991.
Ms. Brissman looks forward to expanding MorningStar Montessori to include Elementary and Adolescent Farm Environments, and an AMI training center, in conjunction with an active and participatory Montessori Community for Dementia and Ageing.
MorningStar Montessori School Staff
MorningStar Montessori is very pleased and proud to be the career home for many highly qualified, trained, and dedicated staff members, many of whom are multilingual and freely share their native languages with the children everyday.
Each class is led by an AMI trained guide (teacher).
Each class is fortunate to have the talented and knowledgeable help of a Teacher's Assistant.
Nido has two Teacher's Assistants to comply with the stringent AMI child-to-adult ratio standards of 3:1.
Children's House also has two Teacher's Assistants to comply with the state licensing requirements for our "wrap-around" classroom.
MorningStar Montessori is also very blessed to have our own kitchen and housekeeping staff.
Our Chef works each day to prepare fresh, homemade, organic, and locally-sourced meals for children and staff.
Our Assistant Cook/Housekeeper assists our Chef, cleans and sanitizes our beautiful school environment, and is also qualified to be our in-house substitute.