Resilient Leadership Guides the AEME Partnership
Alliance for Equity in Montessori Education (AEME) Executive Director Liora Berry knows about resilience. Years ago, Liora was a low-income, single mother, so she understands the difficult realities that some families face when trying to find affordable child care. Her personal experience keeps her grounded in her work today. It fueled her to advocate for the children in our community.
After earning a master’s degree in Public Administration at Portland State University, Liora joined Community Action in Washington County where she started a tenant and family education program to help people navigate affordable housing and financial resources. Her experience advocating for vulnerable and low-income families ranges from working for Cascade AIDS Project to handling contracted funding for homeless services for the City of Portland. She also led homeless services programs at Cascadia Behavioral Health where she expanded programming and championed services for children and their families. Liora brings this previous experience of caring for people in various capacities to her role as the Executive Director of AEME. Liora says, “AEME really interested me because it has a social justice focus, and it’s bringing a high-cost service to people for free. I believe that affordable child care/preschool is the key for many families to prosper.”
In 2021 SVP Portland began a partnership with AEME to invest in both the potential of the organization and its leadership. AEME runs a successful free preschool program that serves children and families living in a historically under-resourced area disproportionately impacted by systemic racism and marginalization. Its mission is to increase access to high-quality, low-cost Montessori education for children ages three to six, prioritizing access for low-income and underrepresented communities. These communities are unable to get into preschools and daycares due to language barriers and other challenges that disproportionately affect people of color, and migrant and refugee households. SVP supports AEME because they put equity at the center of their work, they are working to expand the number of spaces for preschoolers in our community, and increase the preschool workforce. AEME is small but intends to grow, which requires management infrastructure–an area where our Partners can have a meaningful impact.
AEME is unique in its intention to achieve social justice, equity, and educational goals by partnering with public elementary schools. As Liora puts it, “Our commitment is to equity. It's centralized within everything we do. But it all comes down to providing really high-quality early childhood education. We do that through partnerships with families – that's the most important partnership we have – and with public schools.” AEME’s flagship program is Alder Montessori, located in Reynolds School District. The program started with one classroom and has expanded after conversations with parents about what they want for their children. Liora is proud that Alder Montessori “is now in its sixth year and it serves 40 kids per year, all from the Alder elementary catchment area. We've served 240 children so far. We use a weighted lottery that focuses on needs, such as the child's language and family's income status, in order to prioritize them into our program and provide support accessing and completing the paperwork under the Preschool Promise system.” Each year, the demand for seats exceeds Alder Montessori’s capacity.
AEME intends to replicate their program at other public schools so that as many children as possible have access to a Montessori education. Our partnership focuses on capacity building to help AEME implement their vision to extend their reach. If successful, AEME would facilitate the only large-scale expansion of free, publicly-funded Montessori programs in the country.