A City’s Investment in Early Education: Honeypot’s New Chapter

Honeypot Montessori in Newark, New Jersey reopened this fall, carrying with it a story of resilience, persistence, and growth.

“Honeypot is my love letter to Newark—the progressive, culturally rich city that shaped me as an adult and as an educator,” says founder and Head of School Dr. Deja Jones. To re-emerge with the embrace of Newark behind her is a celebration not only of persistence but of the city’s shared investment in Honeypot’s future.

Honeypot’s Model and Mission

Honeypot Montessori is Newark’s first nature Montessori school— now in a permanent, expanded facility and reimagined as a community-rooted lab school in partnership with Rutgers University–Newark Office of Community and Rutgers Engaged Sciences (CARES). Honeypot is dedicated to inclusive, high-quality Montessori education that nurtures curiosity, independence, and a love of learning. 

Its approach is culturally responsive, nature-connected, and research-driven, ensuring children from historically underrepresented and underserved communities can thrive academically, socially, and emotionally.

As a lab school, Honeypot bridges practice and research, advancing innovative child-centered approaches that support not only the whole child, but also families and the broader Newark community. In doing so, it aims to contribute to the city’s revitalization and environmental justice movements.

Meet Dr. Deja Jones

Dr. Deja L. Jones, Ph.D., is a Newark-based educator, advocate, and entrepreneur. After nearly a decade working in public and charter schools in Newark, she founded Honeypot to disrupt cycles where Black and Brown children in the city were too often silenced, over-managed, or overlooked in the rushed pursuit of test scores.

“I knew, deeply, that something had to change,” she reflects. “Honeypot is a living response to inequities in early education—an institution of possibility where childhood is respected and children are humanized.”

Deja’s leadership weaves together her lived experience, academic training, and entrepreneurial grit. From learning grant writing and compliance through trial and error to building partnerships with Rutgers, Newark Arts, the Branch Brook Park Alliance, and more, she has grown from educator to educator-entrepreneur—rooted in the belief that liberation and joy must be central to children’s education.

A First Chapter: Pilot Phase, Promises, and Lessons Learned

When Honeypot first opened in 2022 with the support of Wildflower and funding partners like the Overdeck Family Foundation, it was met with enthusiasm from families eager for Montessori in Newark. Full of zeal to serve its community, the school had opened in a pilot facility under a provisional license, while the team continued searching for a permanent site that would allow families to access public childcare vouchers. 

That pilot year confirmed the promise of Honeypot’s Montessori model but also highlighted the importance of securing a fully licensable, long-term home early. Newark’s dense development made finding such a space difficult, including when a prospective site was lost unexpectedly due to environmental concerns.

Even in this temporary space, children thrived. Families saw remarkable growth in literacy and math, documented through teacher observations, Montessori benchmarks, and Transparent Classroom data. Of the 15 children—many pandemic babies experiencing school for the first time—64% mastered phonograms and sight words, and 80% mastered number concepts, in a city still grappling with persistent early literacy and math gaps. Parents also testified to transformations in their children’s confidence, curiosity, and joy – including one child with significant speech delay who progressed to speaking in full sentences and telling stories by year’s end. 

For Deja, the lesson was clear: sustainability meant creating conditions for voucher access and building deeper partnerships across Newark’s civic fabric. Rather than push forward without those pieces, she made the strategic choice to pause after the pilot year—turning reflection into preparation for a stronger second chapter.

Newark Steps In

If the first Honeypot survived on sheer willpower, the second is being rebuilt with Newark’s embrace. During the pause, Deja stayed connected to families through weekend nature programs and deepened partnerships with Newark-based organizations. This time, she returned not alone, but backed by a city eager to see Honeypot thrive.

With $140,000 in grants (Black Wildflowers Fund, Invest Newark, Newark Alliance), Honeypot secured a permanent home in a spacious former Bright Horizons center—ample room for classrooms, outdoor learning, and community programming.

Support now comes from every corner of Newark’s civic fabric:

• Corporate partners like Audible, whose volunteers assembled furniture and whose employees now have access to limited discounted seats.

• Higher education partnerships with Rutgers-Newark CARES, collaborating on research and future field placements.

• Community partners like the Program for Parents, ensuring families can use childcare vouchers and making Montessori accessible to working-class and low-income families.

“In 2022, Wildflower was our only major support,” Deja reflects. “Today, Newark is opening the doors with us.”

A School for Newark, With Newark

The reopening is not a reset—it is a culmination. Every lesson learned, every partnership forged, every new skill developed has shaped Honeypot into what it is today: a research-partnered, community-embedded Montessori option that honors both the rigor of academic benchmarks and the wholeness of childhood.

Looking ahead, Honeypot is exploring:

• A Nature Learning Lab and Library with hydroponics, science artifacts, and garden beds.

• Expanded weekend and afterschool programming for the community, including offerings such as doula training.

• A pipeline into Newark’s universal pre-K program and, eventually, elementary Montessori—supported by parents interested in seeking Montessori training themselves to continue this work.

Redemption, Realized

Honeypot’s reopening is a testament to what is possible when persistence meets partnership. It is a school reborn stronger—led by an educator who refused to quit but also knew when to take a step back, and come back with greater strength and wisdom. It is rooted in a city that believes in its children’s brilliance and supported by institutions ready to reimagine what early education can be.

Honeypot Montessori is opening its doors again. This time, not just with hope, but with Newark at its side.

Visit honeypotmontessori.org to enroll and/or get involved.