Advisory · Montessori Equity Audit
Most Montessori schools have equity aspirations. Almost none have equity infrastructure.
The Montessori Equity Audit is a structured, facilitated diagnostic that helps leadership teams see honestly where their organization stands. Not where it intends to be. Where it actually is.
The Problem This Addresses
Saying the right things is not the same as building the right systems.
Montessori schools often carry deep equity aspirations. Schools that serve children who have been failed by other systems, schools that talk honestly about anti-bias and antiracist practice, schools with mission statements that name justice, belonging, and dignity. And often, those same schools have hiring patterns that reproduce the same demographic year after year. Adult cultures where belonging is not equitably distributed. Governance structures with no equity accountability built in. Curriculum that nods at representation without interrogating what representation actually requires.
The gap is not usually about intention. It is about infrastructure. Schools that have committed to equity without auditing whether their systems support that commitment are working on goodwill alone. Goodwill is not a system.
This is not DEI training. It is not a checklist. It is not a box to check so that equity work appears on a strategic plan. It is an honest look at whether your organization is built to live what it says it believes.
The Diagnostic
Four domains. Honest questions.
The audit is organized across four areas of organizational life. Together, they give leadership teams a full picture of where equity commitments are supported by actual systems and where they are not.
01
Hiring and Retention Equity
Who gets hired. Who stays. Who advances. Who leaves and why. The diagnostic looks at whether your hiring practices, retention patterns, and promotion decisions reflect your stated equity commitments or contradict them.
02
Adult Culture and Belonging
Whether the adults in your building actually experience safety, dignity, and belonging at work. Not whether the handbook says they should. Whether they do.
03
Curriculum and Representation
Whether the children in your classrooms see themselves in the materials, the stories, the images on the walls, and in the people teaching them. Whether the curriculum engages honestly with the world those children live in.
04
Governance and Accountability
Whether equity commitments are embedded in governance structures, strategic planning, and leadership accountability systems, or whether they exist only in statements and aspirations that no one is actually responsible for.
What the Engagement Includes
Three things. Delivered in sequence.
Diagnostic Instrument
A structured set of prompts completed by the leadership team across all four domains before the debrief session. Designed to surface honest individual responses before the group conversation.
Facilitated Debrief Session
A session led by Hannah Richardson where the team reviews findings together. The session surfaces alignment and gaps, names what the data actually shows, and identifies the highest-leverage areas for change.
Written Findings and Recommendations
A document delivered after the session naming what the audit found, where the organization is, and what a prioritized path forward looks like. Written to be shared with leadership and board, not filed away.
Who It’s For
Schools that are ready to see what the data actually shows.
This engagement is most valuable for schools that want to do honest work, not defended work. If your leadership team is ready to look at what your systems are actually producing and take that seriously, this is for you.
A Direct Note
This is not diversity training. It is not a compliance exercise.
DEI training can build awareness. It rarely builds infrastructure. The Montessori Equity Audit is not a workshop, a speaker event, or a professional development day on bias. It is a diagnostic engagement with a leadership team that is ready to look honestly at what their organization is actually doing, not what it intends to do.
The goal is not to make leadership feel good about their commitment to equity. The goal is to understand specifically where the gaps are and build a prioritized path to close them. That requires honesty, and it requires a team that can hold honest findings without becoming defensive.
If your school is not ready for that kind of look, a consultation conversation will help you figure out what to do first.
Also Available
Self-Guided Edition available at $197.
The full diagnostic instrument with a self-scoring guide and leadership team debrief protocol. A rigorous starting point for teams who want to begin this work before engaging outside support.
Next Step
Ready to see where your organization actually stands?
Book a consultation to talk through the audit process and whether your leadership team is ready for it.
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