Starting a Montessori School

Episode 5, Podcast Reflection
By Maati Wafford, LSW

Each year on my children’s birthdays, I reflect on my birthing experience.  I’ve engaged in this ritual of remembrance for close to twenty years now.  This year, a memory that stood out captured me while thumbing through an old journal and landing on a to-do list I had written just before giving birth to my daughter in 2009.    

Among mundane tasks like packing my birth bag, returning library books, and organizing the bathroom, I put the finishing touches on my school start-up business plan.

I’ve always had a vision of starting a school, and after stepping foot in a public Montessori school for the first time, I realized more about how I wanted this vision to be realized. I understood that it has always been at my core, the cosmic task nurtured through the years that continues to surface and shape my Montessori practice today.

Season 5, Episode 10 of the Public Montessori in Action Podcast hosted by Elizabeth Slade, opens with a question about superpowers and describes how two couples have activated their childhood experiences, professional expertise, and commitment to social justice to launch tuition-free public Montessori schools in their communities, opening this August.

They are turning their visions into reality and, as parents, have committed to what is often a long, tedious process with peaks and valleys along the way.  These commitments benefit their children while offering numerous community-wide opportunities in neighborhoods where they hold personal connections.  

As the guests mentioned, the pathway from initial planning to opening can take many years, involving financial planning and budgeting that cover startup costs, materials, teacher training, and ongoing operations, all of which depend on state requirements and approval processes. Planning at this level will invite you to deepen your knowledge of Montessori pedagogy and philosophy.  

Public Montessori in Action offers school start-up expertise, advising, and thoughtful, customized tools that provide a perfect blend of the practical and philosophical aspects of the school start-up experience.

Securing an appropriate facility and ensuring that your program meets quality standards is as much a philosophical matter as it is a legal one.  While one may possess skills in budget planning and finance, these skills, combined with thoughtful guidance on Montessori’s four planes of development, enable an expansive approach that keeps the child at the center of every step.

Each guest offered insight into the intuitive nature of their school start-up experiences, where a common theme throughout this timely conversation was the importance of curiosity.  Being willing to ask a question and receptive enough to see how you can live into those questions and birth something filled with promise and potential seems to sustain each family as they make revolutionary strides in their communities.  Having a personal connection to the neighborhood and school mission is critical. You might ask yourself if you have assessed the genuine community interest beyond initial enthusiasm. What demographic and socioeconomic diversity exists in your target area, and how do you plan to ensure the school serves all families equitably? How will you build sustained community support throughout the inevitable challenges along the way? 

 When I think back to who I was in my late 20’s with my due date quickly approaching, I knew that committing myself to my child would be life-altering. I didn’t know what awaited me on the other side.

So many of us have had a calling, whether in the form of gentle nudges or deep yearnings, that has led us to desire more for ourselves and for the children in our homes and communities.  

Perhaps these are the superpowers that we all nurture and carry within us.

As the guests reflected on what inspired, prepared, and challenged them, seeds of wisdom were offered for others to keep in their pockets or hold in their hearts until the time is just right. I’m walking away with a more profound sense of the power that is cultivated when regular people ask small questions, which grow into living out big dreams.  In this podcast, we got a glimpse of how our public Montessori schools truly begin in the heart and how their origin stories inspire and propel us forward.