About the Toolbox
Real tools for real schools. Built from the inside out.
Every resource in the Montessori Makers Toolbox was built because a real problem kept showing up — in schools doing their best, with genuine commitment, but without the right infrastructure to sustain it.
Browse the ToolboxBuilt by a Practitioner
Hannah Richardson has spent 20+ years inside Montessori leadership.
Hannah Richardson is the founder of Montessori Makers Group and the creator of the Toolbox. Her background spans independent, public, charter, and justice-centered Montessori communities — as a teacher, director, head of school, and organizational consultant.
The Toolbox grew out of a pattern she kept seeing: schools with strong classrooms and real commitment, but adult systems built on informal norms, reinvented documents, and institutional memory living in one person's head.
Every tool in the Toolbox is a response to something she watched schools struggle with — not a theoretical framework projected onto real work, but a direct answer to a specific, recurring problem.
“I built these tools because I was tired of watching leaders do extraordinary work inside fragile systems. The goal was simple: give people the infrastructure they deserve.”
— Hannah Richardson
Why This Exists
Leaders shouldn't have to reinvent the documents alone.
Mission-rich schools often have adult systems that don't match the care and rigor of their classrooms. It's not because the people don't care — it's because no one handed them a working template for how to run a fair performance review, build a board, or navigate a leadership transition in a Montessori context.
The Toolbox exists to close that gap. Not with generic HR templates adapted from corporate settings, but with tools built specifically for the kind of schools Montessori Makers serves: values-driven, community-centered, and trying to do right by the adults in them.
Every tool in the library opens with the problem it solves — because a document that doesn't connect to a real situation doesn't get used.
What Makes These Different
Not adapted from generic templates. Built for Montessori organizations.
Montessori-specific
Written with Montessori adult culture in mind. Not adapted from corporate HR frameworks or generic school district templates.
Implementation-ready
Every tool is editable and designed to be put to use immediately. Not a theory document — a working resource.
Problem-first
Each product opens with the problem it addresses. Tools that don't connect to real situations don't get used. These do.
Ecosystem-connected
Designed to work alongside Advisory, Institute, and MatchHub engagements — and to stand alone when that's what's needed.
Part of the Ecosystem
Toolbox is the practical layer of Montessori Makers Group.
Montessori Makers works across multiple dimensions of school health. Advisory supports organizational design and leadership development. Institute builds leaders through formation programs. MatchHub finds aligned staff. Toolbox provides the practical infrastructure tools that make all of that work hold. The tools stand alone. They go further when the work goes deeper.