The Montessori Leadership Series: Rethinking Montessori

Montessori schools have spent more than a century perfecting the prepared classroom. The school around it, from admissions and billing to records and family communication, often gets far less thought. In the first session of illumine's Montessori Leadership Series, Tim Seldin, President of The Montessori Foundation, joined Anshumaan Bhatt of illumine to talk about why so many schools run as collections of separate classrooms and tools, what that costs leaders and teachers, and what a prepared system for the whole school looks like. This is the written recap. The full recording is at the top of this page.

Key takeaways

Montessori got the classroom right

Tim's starting point was that the Montessori classroom is a replicable, adaptable system of systems. It works in different countries and with every age, from infants to teenagers. The space, the prepared materials, the rhythm of the day and the plan for what adults do and do not do all work together.

The problem, he said, is the school around it. Too many schools resemble a shopping mall renting out space to individual teachers, or an island chain where each classroom does its own thing. The question for leaders is whether they have forgotten to plan the school itself as an organization.

Where schools feel the friction

An opening poll asked attendees where their operations felt the most friction. More than half chose staff operations, followed by parent engagement, visibility for leadership teams, admissions and enrollment, and finally billing and payments.

Tim pointed to the pressures behind it: declining enrollments, inflation, high costs, unpredictable insurance and growing accountability. He then walked through four challenges that he said have not changed much since he started in the 1960s, apart from the technology:

Why one system matters

Asked why schools need one solution rather than several, Tim described a school he had spoken to that same day that was running about 13 separate pieces of software across fundraising, alumni, admissions, marketing, student records, teachers and lunch. All of them were trying to talk to each other, and the result was chaos.

You need something that is integrated.

Tim's checklist for a school system: information a parent enters once should flow to every other form, it has to be secure, it has to work every day on any phone or tablet, and it has to be fast and easy for teachers who have no time to spare. Anshumaan added that when data sits in silos, complexity grows, and that schools often outgrow their systems as they add a second or third site.

The areas every school has to run

Tim explained that The Montessori Foundation teaches nine areas of a school, and walked through what every school has to handle, whatever its size and whether it is for-profit or nonprofit:

On top of these sit lesson planning and recording what happened in the classroom. Tim has heard from teachers who spend all of Sunday, or two hours after every school day, tagging photos and turning notes into reports. Some photos include more than one child, and some families do not want their child's photo shared. He noted that illumine recognizes the child and knows whether permission has been given.

Where the time goes

Tim gave the example of a school with three people in its office and five tools that do not talk to each other, constantly scrambling to keep on top of paperwork. Anshumaan described the result as information asymmetry: the more tools a school uses, the more each team sees only part of the picture.

A second poll asked attendees how many systems they use every day. Tim suggested counting everything: accounting, email, text messaging, parent communication and Montessori record keeping. The most common answer, from 42% of attendees, was four to five systems.

What parents tell the Foundation

Tim shared that in 30 years of polls, surveys, exit interviews and forums, The Montessori Foundation has heard the same two complaints from parents. First, they are tired of being educated by the school and feel pushed to adopt its philosophy. Second, they have no idea what their child does all day and do not understand what the school is telling them. Anything that helps schools communicate clearly and quickly, he said, helps with both.

What growth-ready Montessori schools do differently

Tim noted that adding a site, joining a network or simply growing changes everything. He described a school of around 300 students, running from infants through high school, that is effectively four schools in one.

Tim was emphatic about the last point. He has seen schools lose all their records, which are legal documents, to a fire or flood, so whatever solution a school uses, its records should be in the cloud.

A multi-state example

Anshumaan shared how illumine's work with Guidepost Montessori developed. illumine was already working with Guidepost schools in Southeast Asia. When it was introduced to Guidepost's US centers, the problems were different: four or five tools for center and classroom management, centers in several states struggling to standardize processes, and leaders without real-time data because the systems did not talk to each other. Read the case study on consistency in curriculum at Guidepost Montessori.

How illumine brings it together

Anshumaan walked through how illumine is organized around the teams in a school, so that where one team's work ends, the next team's begins:

• Marketing and enrollment. A childcare CRM keeps every prospective family in one place, with campaigns and tour booking. An AI agent answers questions and books tours when nobody is available, and AI-built inquiry forms sit on the school's website and feed straight in. See the AI enrollment agent and our guide to a childcare CRM.
• Admissions. Schools set out the steps a family completes to enroll, so nothing gets lost between inquiry and the first day.
• Teaching. Real-time messages, activity sharing, observations, progress tracking, assessments and lesson planning sit together. See Montessori record keeping.
• Billing and admin. Tuition plans, expected cash flow for this month and next, and aging invoices are visible in one place. See childcare billing software.
• Leadership. Leaders running one center or many can compare centers, follow admissions trends, track collections and see inquiries day by day.

For schools worried about the work of switching, Anshumaan said illumine's team handles the migration so teachers and office staff can keep running the school. Tim said he has seen the team migrate a school's data and train its staff in a matter of days.

Where AI should not decide

Tim described what a prepared system looks like: automate anything repeated, such as turning a scanned state form into an editable form connected to the school's records in minutes, and structure access so teachers see what they need without being overwhelmed. He also stressed that AI should not make decisions for you, especially about children's safety.

Questions from the session

How much does illumine cost?

The illumine team said packages are transparent, with some custom elements depending on the school's needs, and that they go through pricing directly with each school.

How quickly can a school move over, and is training included?

The illumine team said its customer success team supports onboarding and trains staff throughout the move, and keeps checking in after the school is up and running. Tim added that he has seen schools migrated and trained in a matter of days.

Will time zones be a problem for a school in the Middle East?

An attendee asked this for a school in Qatar. Tim said illumine has a strong presence in the Middle East, particularly the UAE, so staff can get help during their working hours.

Where should schools never use AI?

Anshumaan asked Tim this directly. Tim answered with the incident report example above: AI can help a teacher write clearly, but someone still has to read what it drafts before it goes to a family. Earlier in the session he had also said AI should not be left to decide anything about children's safety.

Resources mentioned

• An ebook from Tim and Anshumaan, shared with attendees, expanding on the ideas from this session.
• The next session in the series, on the Montessori parent journey and how family expectations are changing.
• The Guidepost Montessori case study. Read consistency in curriculum at Guidepost Montessori.

What to do next

For more from the series, read the recap of AI and the Future of Montessori Leadership. To see how illumine supports Montessori schools end to end, explore Montessori school software or book a live demo.