Job Description Library

Working job descriptions for every Montessori school role, calibrated to the actual work rather than borrowed from district templates.

$197

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Montessori Makers Toolbox

$197

What’s Inside

Library of editable job descriptions · every staffed role

The Problem This Solves

Most Montessori schools post jobs using descriptions adapted from public school districts or written from scratch in an afternoon.

The job description goes up on the school website. It uses the language of credentials, hours, and supervisory structure that public school HR departments invented, language that does not actually describe what an authentic Montessori role requires. The descriptions get filled with bullet points about classroom management and lesson planning, while saying nothing about three-year cycles, prepared environments, observation practice, or the relationship work that defines Montessori adult roles. The right candidates self-deselect, and the wrong candidates apply confidently.

The cause is structural. Most schools do not have a working job description library, so when a role opens, someone improvises a description using whatever template surfaces in a search. Over time, the descriptions calcify into something the school uses repeatedly without ever evaluating whether they describe the actual work. New hires arrive with mismatched expectations, and the misalignment cascades into the first six months of the role.

The Job Description Library is the working library schools have been improvising around. Every staffed role in a Montessori school, written for the Montessori work itself, equity-conscious, editable, and ready to adapt for school-specific structure. It produces clarity for candidates and protection for the institution.

What’s Included

A complete library of editable job descriptions, every Montessori school role.

The library covers the full range of roles a Montessori school staffs, from infant care through head of school. Each description is structured to communicate the actual work, the actual qualifications, and the actual relationships the role requires.

Classroom Role Descriptions

Working descriptions for lead guides at every program level, from infant through adolescent, plus assistant guides, classroom support, and specialty roles. Each description is calibrated to the developmental work of the level and includes the specific Montessori practices the role requires.

Instructional Leadership Descriptions

Descriptions for instructional coaches, program directors, and curriculum leads. Built so the role distinctions are clear, which they often are not, and so candidates can self-assess whether the role matches their experience.

Operational Role Descriptions

Descriptions for business managers, operations directors, admissions directors, development directors, and the full range of administrative roles. Calibrated for school size and stage, which materially shifts what these roles require.

Senior Leadership Descriptions

Descriptions for heads of school, executive directors, and assistant heads of school. Built so the differences between models are clear, especially in the head versus executive director distinction that often confuses boards.

Specialty Role Descriptions

Descriptions for Spanish, music, movement, art, library, technology, and the other specialty roles Montessori schools commonly staff. Each description names the integration with the prepared environment that distinguishes Montessori specialty roles from traditional ones.

Equity and Inclusion Language Standards

A working set of language standards for equity-conscious descriptions, including how to write qualifications that do not artificially narrow the candidate pool and how to communicate culture without using the coded language that signals exclusion.

School-Specific Adaptation Guide

A working guide for adapting library descriptions to the specific school. Covers reporting relationships, supervisory structure, school-specific philosophical commitments, and the variation that has to be reflected in the final document.

Role Comparison Matrix

A side-by-side comparison of related roles so leadership can see the distinctions and similarities. Useful when restructuring, expanding, or evaluating whether a current role description matches the work the institution actually needs.

Who It’s For

Schools that want their job descriptions to describe the work, not borrow from someone else's template.

The library is for any school refreshing its hiring practice, restructuring roles, or building HR infrastructure. It is also useful for schools whose current descriptions are outdated, inconsistent, or written by previous leadership.

Heads of school refreshing the school's hiring infrastructure
HR leads inheriting a set of legacy job descriptions that no longer reflect the work
Schools restructuring leadership or program organization and needing updated role definitions
Hiring committees that have been improvising job descriptions for each open role
New schools building their first complete set of job descriptions
Schools entering accreditation cycles that require formal role documentation
Multi-site networks needing calibrated job descriptions across campuses

How to Use It

Adapt descriptions before you need them. The most useful version of this library is the one already adapted to the school's structure, sitting in the HR folder and ready to deploy when a role opens. Block a working morning with the leadership team to walk through the descriptions for current roles, surface where the library version differs from current practice, and decide which version is the more accurate description of the actual work.

Pair with the Hiring and Selection Toolkit, which provides the full hiring infrastructure the descriptions sit inside, and with the Compensation Framework Toolkit so role definitions and compensation banding are aligned.