Martha Lockridge spoke during the district's public participation period on behalf of Montessori Development Partnerships (MDP) and the Montessori Advisory Council and urged the Board of Education to protect the fidelity of Montessori programming in the Cleveland district.

Lockridge said the advisory council, formed in 2020 to steward a campus merger that created Stonebrook White Montessori, revised its governing regulations to support two schools and updated a memorandum of understanding it said is ready for the board to sign. She listed the five core components the council wants the board to protect: teacher training, three-year multi-age classrooms, use of Montessori materials, child-directed work and uninterrupted work periods.

"The Montessori Advisory Council's mission is to steward access to exceptional Montessori education in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District," Lockridge said. She added, "The students in Cleveland deserve a high fidelity Montessori, not Montessori inspired schools."

Concerns cited
Lockridge told the board she and fellow advocates have seen multiple practices that, in their view, reduce Montessori fidelity: moving teachers into different age groupings after those teachers completed training, classrooms that do not maintain a full three-year age span, and arrangements that require K–3 students to leave their building for lunch, which she said "takes away from learning and recess time."

Requested board action
Lockridge asked the board to "safeguard the integrity of the Montessori model by ensuring that all decisions pass through a Montessori lens before becoming final" and to hold central office staff and school-based leadership accountable for the five components she outlined. She cited Tremont Montessori's AMS accreditation as an example of a high-fidelity program in the district.

No formal board action on the request was taken during the meeting; the statement was part of the public participation period.

Speakers quoted or cited: "We request that the board safeguard the integrity of the Montessori model by ensuring that all decisions pass through a Montessori lens before becoming final," Martha Lockridge said. She also quoted the National Center for Montessori in the Public Sector: "Equitable, accessible, sustainable public Montessori programs have the power to disrupt racism, poverty and structural inequality and transform lives and societies for peace and justice."