Heads of School
Navigating the full organizational and cultural complexity of school leadership.
Montessori Makers Institute
Leadership for the part they didn't prepare you for.
Not a program you complete. Real situations, real constraints, real communities, using Montessori as the reasoning framework.
Every Institute graduate receives six months of Leadership Meridian free, so the practice continues after the cohort ends.
Why it exists
Montessori trains leaders in pedagogy. Almost nothing prepares them for the complexity of leading adults.
Most leadership training prepares people forleadership. This builds capacity while you're already in it.
No simulated scenarios. No theory to implement later. We work with your actual situation, your team, your constraints, your community, using Montessori as the framework for real decisions.
“Usually I leave with ideas. This time I left with next steps.”
Who it’s for
For leaders already in the work.
Heads of school navigating the full complexity of the role, the organizational decisions, the adult culture challenges, the moments no training addressed.
Directors, associate heads, and emerging leaders building the capacity to lead before stepping fully into it.
Leadership teams that need to think and work together more effectively, across the full range of decisions a Montessori school demands.
Emerging Leaders
Building leadership capacity before stepping fully into a head role.
Leadership Teams
Developing shared language and alignment across the full leadership function.
Programs
Six ways to engage.
Each format represents a different depth of engagement, from the flagship program down to a single session. All built for people actively in leadership, not preparing for it.
- Flagship · 6 monthsApply for the Charter Cohort →
The Prepared Leader
Full academic year · Charter Cohort begins January 2027
From $4,950 (Charter) · $9,500 standard year
The flagship program for heads of school ready to build a Prepared Organization into the school they actually run. A full academic year building the five load-bearing components into your own school, coached, with a two-day capstone in June. The founding Charter Cohort runs condensed, January to June 2027. Application-based and personally reviewed.
- 6 to 9 monthsApply for Direct Counsel →
Direct Counsel
1:1, sustained, application-based
By application · limited availability
The Institute's highest-commitment 1:1 offering. A sustained, one-to-one engagement built around a single leader navigating significant transition, elevated responsibility, or a critical period of organizational change. Application-based. Limited availability.
- Team-basedLearn about retreats →
Leadership Alignment Retreat
Team-based, on-site or residential
Custom, per leadership team
For leadership teams, not individuals. A structured retreat that surfaces misalignment, works through shared challenges, and builds the shared language teams need to actually function.
- OngoingJoin the next cohort →
Leadership Circle
Monthly, ongoing cohort
$1,500 for the year · next cohort September 2026 · 8 to 12 seats
A standing peer cohort for active leaders. Monthly sessions, structured reflection, and shared problem-solving with peers who understand the work. Not a course, a practice.
- ImmersionSee upcoming dates →
Leadership Intensive
Multi-day, cohort-based
$900 · paused, Summer 2027 waitlist
A multi-day immersion into Montessori leadership practice. Works through real cases, team dynamics, and the specific demands of leading adults in a Montessori school.
- Entry pointBrowse seminars →
Applied Seminars
Half-day & full-day sessions
From $200 · new sessions monthly
Focused sessions on specific leadership challenges, difficult conversations, strategic communication, adult culture, decision-making under pressure. Immediately applicable. No prerequisites.
Teacher Preparation
Montessori Makers Residency: Launching Fall 2026
The Institute develops school leaders. MMR prepares the teachers those leaders need. The Primary credential, built with an equity lens, a paid practicum model, and a curriculum depth the field has never produced at this price.
What makes this different
Montessori leadership training built for people already leading.
Montessori as a reasoning framework
Not just a pedagogy. Montessori offers a principled way of thinking about adult development, organizational design, and human environments. Every program applies it to real leadership decisions.
Your situation, not a curriculum
We don’t teach leadership in the abstract. The material is what you’re actually navigating, your team, your constraints, your community.
Formation, not information
The goal isn’t to give you more to read or implement. It’s to change how you think, how you reason, and how you hold the complexity of leading a Montessori school.
Across the arc of leadership
From a first seminar to months of direct counsel, every format is calibrated to a specific depth and kind of need. You don’t have to do it all, you start where it makes sense.
Outcomes
What changes when you do this work.
Not a credential. Not a model to roll out. A different way of seeing the work, and the people you lead.
- Decisions made with clarity, even under real pressure
- Harder conversations handled with less damage
- Conflict that resolves instead of cycling
- Staff who trust leadership, and show it
- Leadership capacity that doesn’t depend on any one person
In the ecosystem
The Institute works alongside Advisory and Toolbox.
Hear from leaders who've done this work →Advisory
Strategic consulting for Montessori schools navigating organizational decisions, governance challenges, and structural change. Advisory addresses the systems; the Institute develops the leaders who run them.
Explore Advisory→Toolbox
Practical tools, frameworks, and resources built for Montessori school leaders. What you’re developing in the Institute, you can put to work with Toolbox resources.
Explore Toolbox→About Montessori Makers Group
Montessori Makers Group is the organization behind the Institute, Advisory, and Toolbox. Learn about the mission, the founder, and the thinking behind the work.
About Montessori Makers Group→Frequently Asked
What people ask about the Institute.
What is the Montessori Makers Institute?
The Montessori Makers Institute is the leadership-formation arm of Montessori Makers Group. It offers applied seminars, the multi-day Leadership Intensive, the year-long Leadership Circle cohort, and Direct Counsel one-to-one advising, all built specifically around the actual work of Montessori heads of school, directors, and senior leaders.
What is the Leadership Circle?
The Leadership Circle is a year-long Montessori leadership cohort for heads of school, owners, and senior directors. It runs September through May with 9 monthly 90-minute live online sessions (not recorded), capped at 8 to 12 members. Tuition is $1,500 for the full cohort. Sessions are case-based: members bring real, current leadership challenges and work them in confidence with peers and Hannah Richardson.
What is the Leadership Intensive?
The Leadership Intensive is a focused 3-day Montessori leadership program for heads of school and senior leaders who need to compress strategic leadership development into a short, immersive cohort. The Summer 2026 cohort is paused; the next cohort is planned for Summer 2027 with dates to be announced. Tuition is $900. Join the waitlist to be notified when registration opens.
What is a Montessori leadership seminar?
A Montessori leadership seminar is a structured professional development format for school leaders that combines applied case work, frameworks specific to Montessori organizational design, and peer learning. Unlike generic education leadership programs, Montessori leadership seminars address the specific tensions of running a Montessori school, staff culture, parent education, equity, the prepared environment, and financial sustainability inside a developmental philosophy.
How do Montessori heads of school develop professionally?
Montessori heads of school typically develop through a combination of: cohort-based leadership programs (such as the Montessori Makers Institute Leadership Circle), applied seminars on specific operational topics, one-to-one advising, peer learning groups, and ongoing reading. Generic K, 12 leadership programs rarely fit because they do not engage the developmental philosophy that defines Montessori practice. Programs like the Montessori Makers Institute exist to fill that gap.
Who is the Institute for?
The Montessori Makers Institute is for heads of school, owners, executive directors, and senior leaders inside Montessori schools, both AMS- and AMI-trained leaders, public charter and independent schools, founders and successors, and leaders new to the role as well as veterans. Most participants lead schools of 30 to 400 students.
Is the Institute affiliated with AMI or AMS?
The Montessori Makers Institute is independent. It is not an AMI- or AMS-credentialing body and does not issue Montessori teacher credentials. It works alongside both, most participants come from one or the other lineage. Our Residency program (a separate offering) is the credential-bearing track.
Because children experience the organization adults create.
You're already carrying it, the decisions, the team tensions, the situations no one fully prepared you for.
The quality of adult leadership shapes everything children experience in a Montessori school. This is not professional development. It's the work.
Advisory addresses systems · The Institute develops the leaders who run them
The Makers Network
A weekly email for Montessori leaders and practitioners.
Free. No noise. Just what matters to people doing this work.
·Leadership frameworks you can apply the same week
·Ecosystem updates and new tools, subscribers first
·Thinking on adult culture, hiring, and organizational design