Domi Maigut
School Administration · MBA Candidate, Rollins College
Domi Maigut holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and brings years of experience in school operations and education.
Faculty
the teachers here helped write what they teach.
A curriculum is only as good as the person holding it.
A lesson plan cannot see the look on your child's face. It cannot decide when to ask one more question, when to step in, when to let a child struggle for another minute, or when a four-year-old needs reassurance more than instruction. Teachers make those calls, hundreds of times a day. So we hire for judgment, and then we spend the year sharpening it.
How we hire
Four things we will not compromise on.
Credentials get someone an interview. These four get someone a classroom. Every candidate spends a working morning with children before we make an offer — we watch what they do when a plan falls apart.
01
They can hold a question open
The hardest skill in this building is not answering. A child asks why, and a good teacher here says what do you think? — and then waits through the silence.
02
They are comfortable being wrong
We ask every candidate about a lesson that failed. The ones who describe it precisely, without blaming the children, are the ones we call back.
03
They notice out loud
Documentation is not paperwork here. A teacher who can tell you exactly what your child was trying at 10:15 this morning is a teacher who was actually watching.
04
They want to build the work
Teachers here write lessons, break them, and rewrite them. If someone wants a binder handed to them in August, this is the wrong school — kindly, but genuinely.
every teacher here is trained in the CAPE Method™ before they lead a room.
Every adult here is background-screened and cleared under Florida DCF requirements, and holds current CPR and first-aid certification.
A Message from Our Head of School
Marnie Forestieri
Founder of The Winter Park School · Co-creator of the Innovation Advantage™ curriculum and the CAPE Method™
Dear Families,
Welcome to The Winter Park School! I’m proud to introduce the caring educators who support our students from the infant room through the elementary grades. Across every age and stage, our teachers create welcoming learning environments where students feel known, valued, and encouraged to grow.
Our educators build strong relationships with students and families while supporting each child’s development through nurturing care, purposeful learning, and meaningful experiences. We’re grateful for the dedication they bring to our school community every day.
Thank you for trusting us with your children. We look forward to partnering with your family as curiosity leads the way.
Warmly,
Marnie Forestieri
Head of School, The Winter Park School
Founder · Young Innovators Academy
Author · Gryphon House
TEDx speaker
Wrote the CAPE Method™
What she believes
Machines will always know more facts than your child. They will never know which question to ask next.
School Leadership and Administration
The people who will actually be beside your child.
Not a stock photo of a smiling stranger. Each teacher here tells you their room, how long they've been teaching, and one thing they believe — in their own words, not ours. Ask any of them about a child's project on your tour and watch how fast they answer.
Dr. Debby Mitchell
Curriculum Director
Dr. Debby Mitchell is a retired UCF professor who has devoted her life to improving early childhood and elementary education. She is the co-creator, with Marnie Forestieri and Sarah Sprinkle, of the Innovation Advantage™.
Jesmarie Mercado
Curriculum Coordinator
Jesmarie Mercado is the Curriculum Coordinator at The Winter Park School.
Evelyn Cintron
Assistant Head of School
Supporting the teachers and young learners who make our infant, toddler, and early preschool classrooms special.
The full team, room by room, including assistants and specialists, is on the wall by the front office. Every adult in the building is screened and cleared under Florida DCF requirements.
How teachers grow here
Coaching attached to this week's lesson — not to an August training day.
Coaching happens in the room, in the middle of the work, by October. Here it runs on the same four steps we teach the children, every week of the year.
C
The teacher names the problem
Not "how was your week?" — something specific. The block area collapses into conflict every Tuesday. Half the room checks out during the share.
A
Someone comes and watches
A real observation of that real moment, in that real room. Notes are about what happened and what the children did — never a rubric score.
P
They change one thing
One move, tried next week. A different question at the start of the share. Two fewer children in the block area. Small enough to actually happen.
E
Did it work?
If it did, it goes into the lesson for everyone. If it didn't, it gets changed again. This is how a curriculum written in one building gets good enough to send to others.
the same cycle we teach the children. we'd be hypocrites otherwise.
Three things we hold to. Three we don't do.
We hold to
A structure, and the authority to leave it
A lesson plan lasts until the first genuinely interesting question. Teachers here get a clear structure and the authority to follow the children inside it.
We hold to
The same adults, all year
Young children attach to people, not buildings. Keeping the same teachers with the same children is a curriculum decision, and the timetable is built around it.
We hold to
Observation is about practice
A teacher is coached on what happens between them and a child — the question they asked, the pause they held — and that is what an observation records.
Working here
We hire teachers who want to build the curriculum.
If you have ever closed a teacher's manual and thought I could write a better version of this — that instinct is the job description. Come and write it here.
Open roles are always listed on the careers page.
Don't take our word for any of this.
Come on a working morning and ask a teacher what your child's age group is currently trying to figure out. You will learn more in ninety seconds than this page can tell you.
they will know. that's the whole point.