The Dandy Lion Preschool was established in 1981 by the Veness family, and has earned an excellent reputation while serving this community for the past twenty-eight years. The Veness’ retired in November of 1996 when Ann Balasuriya and Dave Hunter purchased the school to provide a location for Ann’s Montessori Teacher-Training Institute on the Central Coast. By January of 1997, the Rainbow Room was converted into a Montessori Prepared Environment and the name of the school was slightly revised to Dandy Lion Montessori School to reflect the change to a Montessori program.

In early 1998, the full kitchen was removed from the Sunshine Room and it too was converted to a lovely Montessori classroom. When the 98/99 academic year began, both classrooms were fully functioning Montessori classes. With little advertising, the stellar word-of-mouth reputation of Dandy Lion kept our program functioning at capacity for many years. Ann trained the teachers and kept the program fine tuned, while Dave managed the office. After hiring an office manager several years ago, Dave retired from active management of the school, although he remains involved in the background as President of the International Association of Progressive Montessori (IAPM) and continues to utilize his computer skills making classroom materials for the children of Dandy Lion and for the teachers in training at the institute, as well as webmaster of our presence on the internet.