About Montessori Makers
Building what Montessori actually needs.
Founded by Hannah Richardson, Montessori Makers connects school consulting, leadership formation, and practical tools through one body of work: the Prepared Organization.
Meet Hannah Richardson
How the practice took shape
From the classroom to the organization around it.
Inside schools
Guide, coach, coordinator, curriculum leader, and head of school. A view of the work from several seats.
A framework for the whole
The Prepared Organization applies Montessori’s care for the environment to the conditions adults work in.
The tools to put it into practice
Advisory, Institute, and MMAP connect that thinking to decisions, professional learning, and everyday operations.
Founder, Montessori Makers Group
Hannah Richardson
“I built Montessori Makers because I saw leaders doing extraordinary work, without the structures to sustain it.”
Hannah’s work spans independent, public, charter, and justice-centered Montessori communities. She has served as a guide, coach, coordinator, consultant, director of curriculum and instruction, and Head of School, supporting programs from infancy through middle school in schools serving 90 to nearly 800 students.
Those roles inform a practical question: what do the adults around a child need in order to do their work well? Her approach connects leadership, adult culture, hiring, and daily operations with the conditions children experience.
She developed the Prepared Organization, a five-component framework that applies Montessori’s prepared environment principles to the organization itself. It gives school leaders a way to examine clarity, autonomy, adult preparation, coherence, and justice together.
Montessori Makers began in Chicago as a consulting practice. It grew into the services and tools schools needed alongside that work: Advisory for organizational decisions, Institute for leadership formation, and MMAP for daily school operations. Learning, MatchHub, and the wider MMG ecosystem extend the work into literacy, curriculum, hiring, and the public presence of Montessori schools.
Preparation and service
Hannah is trained in anti-bias, anti-racist practice and has completed doctoral coursework in Early Childhood Education (ABD). She serves on the boards of Indigo Montessori, Breakthrough Montessori PCS in Washington, D.C., where she was a founding leader, and The Peace Rebellion.
Where the work began
Rooted in Chicago. Built for Montessori.
Montessori Makers began here, with a question that still guides the work: what do schools need around them to make their vision possible?
Beyond MMG
The work outside Montessori Makers.
Hannah’s frameworks extend beyond the schools she serves. The Peace Rebellion and her board roles round out a practice grounded in justice, systems thinking, and the reach of prepared-environment principles.
Venture
The Peace Rebellion
An abolitionist Montessori advocacy organization working at the intersection of peace education, justice, and the radical potential of Montessori practice. Hannah founded TPR and serves on the board. The name says it plainly: peace is not passive.
thepeacerebellion.org ↗
Board Service
Three boards. One thread.
Board member
Board member · Former founding leader
385 students · Washington, D.C.
Board member
What We Believe
Montessori isn't static. It's a living framework.
It grows with children, communities, and the world we're actually living in. We believe Montessori can evolve with integrity, grounded in research, justice, and deep respect for human development.
We are not neutral about harm, especially harm rooted in racism, exclusion, or authoritarianism. Clarity and courage, with real systems behind them, isn't optional. It's the work.
Five things we hold
Montessori works best when the whole organization is aligned, not just the classroom.
Strong systems protect people and make excellence sustainable.
Adult culture is not separate from child outcomes. It shapes them.
Peace requires justice: safety, dignity, belonging, and courage for every child and adult.
Montessori is not sustained by ideals alone. It needs structures that let those ideals live.
The Framework
These beliefs are formalized in The Prepared Organization, our five-component framework for Montessori school health. →
The Ecosystem
One practice. Many entry points.
Montessori Makers Group is the parent organization for a connected set of services, tools, and platforms, each designed to address a specific need in the Montessori ecosystem.
Advisory
Consulting, leadership support, and organizational strategy.
Institute
Leadership formation and professional development.
MatchHub
Philosophy-aligned hiring for guides and schools.
Residency
Montessori teacher preparation built for working educators.
Toolbox
Practical downloadable tools for school operations.
Learning
Decodable books, curriculum materials, and courses.
MMAP
The school operating system, live and serving Montessori schools.
Partners
Schools, networks, and organizations we work alongside.
Ready to work together?
Start with a conversation about where your school is and what you need.