History

A love of children and a desire to share Montessori with other families was the driving force behind the birth of the school. The founders, Whitney and Andy Blessing, discovered the vacant property at 325 Dayton Avenue in December 2010. With the generous support and dedicated work of friends, family, and the community, the vision for a Montessori school at 325 Dayton took shape and quickly became a reality. Cathedral Hill Montessori School opened its doors for the first time in November 2011 with eight children. The school opened with two classrooms: a Toddler Community and a Children’s House, and later grew to include a second Children’s House that also served as our All Day Montessori environment.

The History of Common Roots Montessori School

After many years of subsequent growth, CHMS widened the scope of its mission to include concerted efforts toward increased accessibility, diversity, inclusivity, equity, and belonging. Operationalizing these values will be a lifelong endeavor that will transform the nature of our operations and community over time. We started with the establishment of our 4-Star Parent Aware rating, which allows us to accept county and state scholarship programs. We increased professional development efforts to prepare our staff through Anti-Racist/Anti-Bias education, trauma-informed care, and understanding learning differences and how to support them. We incorporated Equity & Inclusion work into All Staff meetings and professional development, and began a partnership in the 20-21 school year with the equity consultancy firm Amazeworks to help move our work forward and examine our policies and practices through the lens of Anti-Bias education. 

Continuing that work, CHMS worked over several years to find a new location suited to help us serve our mission well into the future and work toward eliminating barriers to high-quality Montessori education, while still being able to maintain our close-knit community. We collaborated on a vision to prepare authentic Montessori environments and design the space to fit our community’s needs. CHMS underwent a rebranding and renaming process in 2024 and became Common Roots Montessori School in preparation for our move to newly constructed Montessori environments in the Bandana Square building. CRMS looks forward to furthering our partnerships with board, staff and families in equity work and putting roots down in a new community of Saint Paul. 

Common Roots Montessori School is a nonprofit organization with 501c(3) status. If you would like more information on how to volunteer or contribute toward our effort to bring high quality Montessori early childhood education to the community, please contact