About the Alignment Platform
Built by someone who has held the job.
MMAP grew out of Hannah Richardson’s work in Montessori classrooms, school leadership, and governance. It brings that experience to the records, relationships, and responsibilities that fill a school day.
Request a DemoHannah Richardson / Founder
The work has always been connected.
I’ve been a guide, a coach, a coordinator, a consultant, a director of curriculum and instruction, and a head of school. I’ve worked with children from infancy through adolescence, in independent, public, charter, and justice-centered Montessori schools.
I sit on boards. I’ve been the person reading the packet and the person assembling it at midnight. I know how quickly a school day moves from a child’s lesson to a staffing question to a decision that will shape the year ahead.
Those responsibilities belong to the same school. That is the starting point for MMAP: Montessori classroom practice, school operations, staff development, and governance considered together. The platform makes room for the whole job.
Creator
Hannah Richardson
Founder, Montessori Makers Group
“MMAP was not designed from a list of requirements. It was designed from a Tuesday.”
See that experience in the product →The Platform
Start with the work your school needs.
Montessori Makers Alignment Platform—MMAP—has four plans. Surveyor supports classroom practice. North Star adds school operations. Mapmaker adds organizational tools. Atlas brings leadership and governance into view.
Each plan includes the one below it. Start with the responsibilities you need to cover now, then expand as your school is ready. We’ll walk through the plan, optional add-ons, and implementation with you.
The Four Tiers
The purpose
Protect the conditions for good Montessori work.
A prepared classroom depends on the adults and systems around it. Clear records, thoughtful staff development, and steady school operations help those adults give their attention where it belongs.
MMAP gives the work a place: the lesson, the family follow-up, the coaching goal, the annual rhythm, and the decision waiting for the board. The people in the school bring the judgment and care.
School Success Partner
Every MMAP school gets a real person walking with them.
Zainab Sorathia is a lifelong learner, educator, and creative problem solver. She thrives on untangling complex challenges and finding thoughtful, creative solutions : whether she’s leading Fig Tree Montessori, supporting fellow school leaders, or developing Montessori resources.
She is deeply passionate about human development, believing that meaningful growth is just as important for the adults guiding children as it is for the children they serve.
Zainab also leads a school of her own, which is worth saying plainly here rather than leaving you to wonder about it. Inside the schools she supports, she can see the things a school is in the middle of setting up, meaning academic years, classrooms, tuition plans, and forms, along with the student roster she needs in order to check that the setup is right.
She cannot open a family’s contact details, a child’s emergency contacts, an immunization or health record, or the record of which adult belongs to which child. Those are closed to her by the database itself rather than by a rule we ask her to remember, so they stay closed on the days nobody is checking. The account she works from carries one role at every school she supports, including her own, and being the head of one Montessori school gives her no standing at all inside yours.
She loves heat, sunshine, gardening, and geometric art: though these days most of her creative energy is spent building schools and helping others build theirs.
School Success Partner
Zainab Sorathia
Head of School, Fig Tree Montessori
Zainab is the person MMAP schools work with in onboarding and beyond: the ear on the other end when something in the platform, the operational rhythm, or the leadership work needs a partner to talk it through.
Montessori Makers Ecosystem
The Alignment Platform is the operational layer. The ecosystem is the whole.
Montessori Makers works across multiple dimensions of Montessori school health. The Alignment Platform holds the operational and leadership systems. Advisory helps schools design aligned systems when the work requires outside expertise. Institute develops the leaders who run them. MatchHub supports aligned staffing when growth or transition requires it. MMAS, the Montessori Makers Assessment System, provides Montessori-native assessment data that flows directly into the Alignment Platform.
Advisory
Organizational design, leadership coaching, and strategic partnership for schools navigating complexity.
Explore Advisory→Institute
Leadership formation for the parts of school leadership no training prepared you for.
Explore Institute→MMAS
Montessori-native assessment that flows directly into Alignment Platform classroom records.
Explore MMAS→Privacy & Security
School data belongs to the school.
Data Ownership
School data belongs to the school. The Alignment Platform does not sell, share, or use school or student data for any purpose other than operating the platform for the school that owns it.
Student Privacy
The Alignment Platform is built in compliance with FERPA and applicable state student privacy laws. Student records are protected, access-controlled, and never used for third-party purposes.
Security Infrastructure
All data is encrypted in transit and at rest. Access controls are role-based. Security practices are reviewed regularly and updated as standards evolve.
For detailed security and privacy documentation, contact our team.
See the platform in action.
Request a demo walkthrough built around your school's systems, gaps, and questions.