Extended Care Programs
and
after
school programs
Oneness-Family School offers before and after school programs for students from preschool through 8th grade, as a natural extension of the Montessori curriculum.
We strive to provide a comfortable and engaging environment for students who stay past normal school hours, offering snack, indoor activities, enrichment programs, homework help, and outdoor play. Enrichment programs are also available, and past offerings have included soccer, basketball, chess, painting, and Italian.
Learn More
Enrichment classes are available to students after school. Past offerings have included soccer, musical theater, cooking, creative dance, basketball, geography club, and individual piano lessons. Students who have signed up for these activities are kept in aftercare and walked to their enrichment class when it begins. More information on our fall enrichment program will be available when school begins.
Quote: Johannes Traa
Thinking back to what I learned at Oneness, I can see how my experiences there shaped how I approach my work and relationships of all kinds.
Thinking back to what I learned at Oneness, I can see how my experiences there shaped how I approach my work and relationships of all kinds. I currently work as a research engineer at a semiconductor company in the Boston area, specializing in algorithms development. In fact, I recently helped start a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) group in my office to see how we can help the company as a whole improve itself on a “people” level. We spend so much time pushing forward technical work that we sometimes forget that we’re all individuals with unique needs and wants. We’ll all live and work better together if we do our best to acknowledge that uniqueness with openness and compassion.
On a related note, I took over as organizer of an affinity group on Meetup.com a few years ago that is focused on people with a sensitive temperament (myself included). It turns out that there’s an incredible diversity among those who consider themselves to have relatively strong emotional responses to their environment, which often manifests as a need to empathically relate to others. All these values around diversity, empathy, and compassion are rooted in my experiences at Oneness. I’m glad that I had the chance to spend a few years there and hope that today’s Oneness students take some of those same core values with them. It makes a big difference!
Extended Care Staff
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Alex Fisher
Full-Time Substitute Teacher, Aftercare Teacher (Grades 1-3), Earth Keepers Counselor
Email
Biography
Alex Fisher is excited to return to Oneness full-time as a floating teacher, having previously served as an Earth Keepers counselor. He attended Oneness until third grade before pursuing a degree in Psychology at Oberlin College, where he graduated in 2024. Alex has gained valuable experience working with various childcare and educational organizations, including City Year DC, Hand-in-Hand Parenting, and Minds Matter.
His ultimate goal is to become a child psychologist, and he will also be collaborating with Estefani, Director of Student Affairs.
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Ahlam Kays
Aftercare Supervisor
Email
Biography
Born and raised in Lebanon, Ahlam graduated from the American University of Beirut with a BA in English Literature and a Teaching Diploma with a focus on elementary education. Ahlam started her career as an elementary school teacher at the American Community School in Beirut, Lebanon, where the concept of an “Open, Child-Centered classroom” was just being implemented. The civil war (1975 to 1990) forced Ahlam to leave her beloved country and move to Washington DC, where she raised her four children and embarked on a career in education when her youngest daughter graduated from high school.
Before joining Oneness-Family School, Ahlam worked as a Project Coordinator for the Academy for Educational Development (Washington, DC) focused on improving girls’ education in several African countries, then joined FHI 360 (Family Health International) as a Project Director for a portfolio of corporate and private foundation-funded projects focused on improving adolescent girls and boys access, retention and completion of primary and secondary education in Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Guinea, and Ethiopia. Ahlam’s expertise included the implementation of a holistic, multi-pronged approach that responds to the socio-economic, cultural, and educational barriers to education through social-behavioral change campaigns based on targeted dialogues that address gender norms and harmful cultural practices; teacher training; mentoring and building the communities’ capabilities to support their children’s education. Ahlam traveled extensively to each country office and worked closely with the local staff, visited project schools, and held meetings with teachers, mentors, parents, and community leaders, as inclusion of all stakeholders is critical to project success.
Ahlam played a supportive role in the design and implementation of a series of youth symposia on Gender, Youth, and Employability in the Mena region (Jordan, Qatar, Morocco), focusing on identifying challenges that hinder youth from gaining employment by bringing together stakeholders and partners from the public-private sectors, local NGOs and youth to propose solutions.
Ahlam also supported the FHI360 Gender Summit series that promoted gender equity, quality education, and social inclusion and addressed gender-based violence as well as enhancing adolescent girls’ and boys’ comprehensive education and transitioning to the workforce.
Ahlam’s hobbies include hiking, reading, watching documentaries, travel and cooking!
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Julissa Arevalo
Primary Programs Aftercare Teacher (Ages 2-3)
Email
Biography
Julissa Arevalo joins her sister, Marlyn, as the Little Stars aftercare program’s new assistant teacher. She has been surrounded by children her entire life, from spending time with her younger relatives to helping in family and community settings. She loves the joy, curiosity, and kindness that children bring to every interaction, and being around them inspires her to approach life with the same openness to explore and discover new things.
Julissa was drawn to Oneness-Family School after seeing the positive transformation in her sister’s life since joining the community, and she hopes this new role will spark similar personal growth for herself.
In her free time, she enjoys relaxing with her dog or spending time with friends.
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Michael Ihrie
P.E. Teacher, Aftercare Teacher (Grades 4-8)

