The Good Kind of Old-Fashioned
MEMBER SPOTLIGHT: Weems Creek Nursery School
Owner Mary Ostrowski is carrying Weems Creek Nursery School, a half-century West Annapolis tradition built on the quiet power of play, into its next chapter.
A mother on a tour once told Mary Ostrowski she’d heard the school was “kind of old-fashioned,” and it didn’t quite sound like a compliment. Mary didn’t flinch. “The fact that we’re a bit old-fashioned is what makes us so special,” she says. She has good reason for the conviction. Weems Creek Nursery School has been part of the West Annapolis community since 1972, and as Mary puts it, “a small business doesn’t last that long unless it’s doing something right.”
Rooted since 1972
The school took root when Annapolis residents Rod and Missy Tate founded it in 1972. Missy Tate’s philosophy was simple and ahead of its time: nurture young learners while helping them build social skills and a sense of self. That belief shaped everything: colorful, light-filled classrooms, an innovative play-based curriculum, and teachers who fed children’s natural curiosity. Children, she felt, should be free to be children: to act, choose, explore, test, investigate, react, and experiment. As Mrs. Tate once put it, “At the conclusion of their time at Weems Creek, our children are well prepared for Grade School...and beyond!”
Owner, Mary Ostrowski
Listening First
More than fifty years later, that expressive spirit still runs through the place, which is exactly what Mary set out to protect. When she purchased the school in 2018, she didn’t arrive with a plan to reinvent it. She spent her first year doing the opposite: listening. She set out to understand the school’s history, its community, and the traditions that had served families well for decades, so she could preserve what already worked before changing a thing.
Back to the Essentials
Then came 2020. Like so many businesses, Weems Creek hit a wall when COVID arrived. But reopening that fall turned out to be the opening of a door. One of the stipulations around being allowed to reopen that fall was that no visitors were allowed inside the building and field trips were off the table. As a result, the school stripped back to its essentials: just the kids.
In the absence of all the extras that schools tend to pile on, Mary spent the year beginning to understand early childhood education in a new way, and in particular the nuances of play-based learning. She found the heart of what she had been entrusted with. This new perspective, plus the ability to learn from the expertise of her staff, reshaped how she talks about her work.
The biggest misconception she’d love to bust is that children need to be reading by kindergarten. If a child happens to be reading by the time they leave pre-K, wonderful. That’s clearly part of their developmental path, and it’s something to nurture, not a finish line every child must reach on the same schedule. She likes to recall Fred Rogers, who saw play not as something extra but as a child’s most important work. “My time with Weems Creek Nursery School has helped me understand how true that is,” she says.
“The fact that we’re a bit old-fashioned is what makes us so special.”
Why play is the real work
A child’s cognitive abilities, Mary notes, can sit up to twelve months ahead of or behind their peers in these early years, and that’s perfectly normal. Push formal reading and writing too soon, she warns, and you risk widening that gap, planting an early seed of “less than” in children developing right on their own schedule. Play, by contrast, builds what lasts: curiosity, resilience, risk-taking, even conflict resolution. Those skills foster confidence, and confidence builds emotional safety.
“When we feel safe, then we can learn anything.”
Happy families, valued staff
Ask Mary what success looks like beyond the numbers and the answer is immediate: “Success very much looks like happy families.” She learned early that the path there runs through her teachers. Children are remarkably attuned to the tiniest emotions, so when a teacher feels valued and genuinely wants to be there, a child feels it too, and carries that sense of love and being seen home to her parents. Everyone ends up feeling like they’re growing and like they belong.
Where the good ideas come from
Mary’s best ideas tend to arrive outdoors. Walking her neighborhood or hiking in the woods opens up a quiet that’s not silent but peaceful, and, as she says, “I tend to have really great ideas while I’m out walking.”
The Next Chapter
Mary’s instinct to keep moving forward traces back to her father, who instilled a belief she still leans on: “I’m never stuck. When things need to change, I know I have the power to do so, even if it doesn’t always seem logical.” Her goal has always been to preserve what Missy Tate built and carry it forward, and that stewardship is now taking a tangible form. The school is beginning an effort to restore its front steps and entrance, add a welcoming portico, and plant a legacy garden the whole neighborhood can enjoy. The community that has grown up around Weems Creek will have a chance to be part of its next chapter.
Fifty years on, Weems Creek is being cared for with the same conviction that started it, and readied for the children still to come.
Find Weems Creek Nursery School
Mary Ostrowski, Owner
238 Kirkley Road, Annapolis, MD 21401 • Monday–Friday, 8:30 a.m.–3:30 p.m.
The next chapter: a community campaign to restore the school’s front entrance and plant a legacy garden. Details at weemscreeknurseryschool.com/annualfundraiser.
