Equity Tools · Montessori Makers Toolbox
The Montessori Equity Audit: Toolbox Edition
A self-guided diagnostic for Montessori leadership teams ready to look honestly at their own practice and translate what they learn into the work the school will actually take up.
$197
What’s Inside
48-page PDF · 38 diagnostic questions across 4 domains
- ✓Diagnostic Instrument — 38 evidence-based questions
- ✓Self-Scoring Guide with domain average and spread analysis
- ✓Debrief Protocol — four rounds, four hours, structured to stay honest
- ✓Next Steps Framework — what schools can do internally and what needs outside support
The Four Domains
Hiring, Retention, and Workforce Equity
9 questions
Who is hired, who is retained, who is paid what, and who advances. Whether your stated values are reflected in the actual people who keep your school running and in the conditions of their work.
Adult Culture, Belonging, and Psychological Safety
9 questions
How adults treat each other, how disagreement and conflict move through the building, and who feels safe to tell the truth. Whether your school is a place where adults can do hard work together or only be polite.
Curriculum, Representation, and Student Experience
10 questions
What children encounter on the shelves, in the materials, in the books, in the cultural and history work, and in the daily texture of being seen by adults. Whether your prepared environment honors every child it serves.
Governance, Accountability, and Organizational Commitment
10 questions
How the school is governed, financed, and held to account beyond its own self-report. Whether your equity commitments are structural decisions backed by money and authority or aspirations preserved in mission language.
What This Addresses
Most Montessori schools have equity aspirations. Almost none have equity 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. The gap is rarely about intention. It is about infrastructure.
The Toolbox Edition is a structured self-assessment for the leadership team across all four domains of school life. It surfaces what is actually happening in the school, not what the school wishes were happening or what the school looks like from the outside. The questions are written to produce evidence, not affirmation. Schools that complete this audit honestly will find some of what they learn unwelcome. That is the point.
This is accountability work, not sensitivity training. The questions are written to produce useful information, not comfortable feelings. If the work feels challenging, that is not a sign you are doing it wrong. It is a sign you are doing it.
How to Use It
Seven steps. Done in sequence.
Plan for approximately ninety minutes per person for the diagnostic and four hours for the debrief, ideally split across two days. The instrument is designed so that independent completion produces the divergence the team needs to do meaningful work in the debrief.
01
Decide who is in the room
Identify your three to twelve person leadership team. Confirm the facilitator. The facilitator should not be the head of school.
02
Set the conditions
Communicate three commitments to the team: honest answers will not result in punitive consequences, the purpose is to look honestly, the head of school will be quiet when others have a closer view.
03
Complete the diagnostic independently
Each member completes the instrument alone across two sittings in approximately ninety minutes. Do not do this together.
04
Score and synthesize
The facilitator collects responses and uses the self-scoring guide to identify domain averages, spread, and the highest-leverage questions for discussion.
05
Run the debrief protocol
Four rounds over four hours, ideally split across two days. The protocol is structured to keep the conversation honest without an outside facilitator.
06
Write your priorities
Translate what surfaced into a written priority list. Name owners. Name timelines. Name success indicators.
07
Decide what is internal and what needs help
Use the next steps section to identify which priorities your school can carry internally and which typically require outside support to do honestly.
Who It’s For
School leadership teams ready to look honestly at what their systems are actually producing.
This is designed for teams of three to twelve people: the head of school or executive director, program directors across all levels, and senior staff who hold real decision-making authority. Do not run this audit with only the head of school and a single program director. The diagnostic depends on multiple perspectives surfacing different reads of the same school.
- Schools that have made equity commitments publicly and want to audit whether their systems match their words
- Leadership teams that want shared language before a larger equity conversation
- Schools not ready for a facilitated engagement but ready to do honest preparatory work
- Schools where equity has been a recurring theme in staff feedback or family concerns
- Boards wanting a clear picture of where the organization actually stands before setting priorities
A Direct Note
This is not a substitute for the consultant-led Advisory version.
The Advisory version includes an outside facilitator who holds the room through the harder conversations the diagnostic produces. The Toolbox version assumes your team is capable of holding that room itself, and it will tell you honestly when you are not.
If you complete this Toolbox Edition and decide you need outside support to take the next step, the natural pathway is to bring MMG in for the work that requires it. The diagnostic clarity your team has already produced is the most valuable input to a meaningful Advisory engagement. We pick up where you left off.
Inside the Document
A look inside.
The Montessori Equity Audit: Toolbox Edition
$197
48 pages. 38 questions. A self-scoring guide, a debrief protocol, and a next steps framework. Everything your leadership team needs to do this work honestly.
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