About Us

It has been my passion to create amazing schools for the children and families in the Santa Cruz area.  I have always felt the Montessori philosophy is best for most children.  It’s core of respect, and allowance for a wide range of skills levels, both well above and below average, is so important.  It’s natural inclusiveness for a variety of learning modes and differences is impressive.  It has been 24 years now that I have been developing and running Montessori schools.  I am very proud of the learning community I have created here at Coast Redwoods Montessori.

I started on this path when my own children were young and I was searching for the type of amazing Montessori schools that I had come across in my search for a solid educational foundation and loving and engaging childcare for my children since my husband and I both needed to work full time.  The options I found in the area were either too far away given my commute, did not offer full day care, or were closed for big chunks of the summer.  I was working in high tech at the time with a long commute out of the Santa Cruz area and long hours, so I decided to make a huge life change, and create a full-time, year-round, high quality Montessori school to benefit my children and those of other families like mine.  I really thought I would focus on that for short time while my children were young, but I love it.

Santa Cruz is a fairly small community and there have never been enough trained Montessori teachers here so I have also ended up focusing a lot of my attention on training teachers both through my personal efforts, sponsoring professional Montessori education for staff members, and providing in-house training by master teachers, in order to develop excellent teachers and ensure that we offer a true Montessori educational environment.