Black Children Deserve Better. We're Building It.Public schools are failing Black children — not just academically, but in how they see and treat them. Black children, and Black boys in particular, are suspended, labeled, and pushed out of learning environments at rates that have nothing to do with their potential and everything to do with systems that were never designed to serve them.
The consequences follow them for life.
The Black Montessori Education Fund was built in direct response to that reality. We believe that Montessori education, when it is high-fidelity, culturally affirming, and community-rooted, offers something the traditional system too rarely does: an environment where Black children are seen as capable, treated with dignity, and supported to direct their own learning and growth.
We use Montessori as a tool, not a doctrine. And we invest directly in the people, programs, and networks that make it genuinely accessible and cultivate true belonging across the United States and throughout the Black diaspora. Because access alone is not enough if the practice doesn't honor who our children are.
The Black Montessori Education Fund exists to ensure that Black children, families, and educators have access to learning environments that see them fully, treat them with dignity, and support their growth. Working across the United States and the Black diaspora, we advance culturally responsive, high-fidelity Montessori education as a pathway to liberation, self-determination, and collective thriving.
Our Mission
Our Work
Through scholarships, convenings, professional development, and community-centered initiatives, we are building a durable pipeline of well-trained, well-supported Black Montessori educators, school leaders, and advocates. We work to close the persistent gaps in representation, of Black educators, leaders, and children, in Montessori spaces, while nurturing the social, emotional, spiritual, and economic conditions for collective thriving.
We don't just support schools. We support communities. Our work spans the U.S. and the Black diaspora, and it is led by practitioners who are deeply embedded in the communities we serve.
Our Reach Since 2020
$232,974+ invested in Black educator training, children, and community programs since 2020
48 programs strengthened across the U.S. and the Black diaspora
77 educators supported in pursuing Montessori training and certification
62 families supported with Montessori tuition scholarships
Black Montessori ecosystems strengthened across 12 countries
Our Story
The BMEF was founded in 2020 by Dr. Ayize Sabater I — not as a response to a trend, but as a direct answer to a persistent reality: that Black children, families, and educators have been systematically underserved by educational systems that were never designed with them in mind.
Born from the momentum of the 2020 Washington, D.C. protests, the BMEF was built on a conviction that education is not neutral.
Grounded in Dr. Montessori's holistic philosophy and honoring the legacy of Black educational pioneers like Mary McLeod Bethune, we are continuing a long tradition of Black communities claiming the right to educate their own children with dignity, intention, and care.
Our Team
We are a lean, community-rooted organization, and that is by design. Our work is driven by practitioners and advocates who are deeply embedded in the communities we serve, not removed from them. Every initiative we undertake reflects lived expertise, genuine care, and an unwavering belief in education as a tool for liberation.
Dr. Ayize has spent more than two decades at the intersection of community organizing, education, and Black liberation. A Magna Cum Laude graduate of Morehouse College with a doctorate in Urban Educational Leadership from Morgan State University and an AMI 12-18 Diploma, Dr. Sabater brings both scholarly rigor and deep roots in community-based practice to his work at the BMEF. He is the co-founder of multiple community institutions — including an independent Black school and a Montessori public charter school in Washington, D.C. — and a published researcher who lectures widely on Black empowerment, educational transformation, and systems change.
Dr. Ayize Sabater I, Ed. D
Co-Founder
Meisha is a Montessori educator, consultant, and program leader who has spent her career ensuring that Montessori education lives up to its fullest promise — not just in well-resourced settings, but in communities around the world that have historically been left out of the conversation. From Thailand to Indonesia to the Cayman Islands, her work has centered on one core question: how do you make Montessori both high-fidelity and genuinely aligned with the cultural values of the community it serves?
That question led her to found Montessori Meisha, an online store dedicated to culturally affirming Montessori materials, and is the foundation of her work as Executive Director of the BMEF. Her background in Journalism gave her an early, firsthand lens on the educational and economic disparities shaping Black communities — a lens that has informed her practice ever since. She holds a Master's in Montessori Education from William Howard Taft University.
Meisha Perrin, M.Ed
Executive DirectorFiscal SponsorThe BMEF is a fiscally-sponsored project of Mentors of Minorities in Education (M.O.M.I.Es), Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based 501(c)(3) dedicated to transformative educational equity for children of color.