Dear Mr. Page and Mrs. Muñoz,

On this Thanksgiving we want to take this opportunity to thank you and want to thank your school's staff.

Our girls are doing wonderful at their respective grade levels.  Nishtha is at UCSD, Nirali sophomore year of high school, and Ayushi in 6th grade.

We see the values and education provided at Meher has helped them tremendously. I am very proud of them, and very grateful that Meher Montessori helped build a great foundation for them to succeed at all levels. We feel very blessed that our children  attended  Montessori school. Thank you.

And we thank Meher Montessori School from bottom of our hearts,
Tina and Roshan 

Meher graduates

EVITA CHAVEZ

From counting beads in the primary classroom to racing my friends through the math boxes in the upper elementary classroom, my experience as a Montessori student shaped the foundational building blocks of the proverbial pink tower of my career.

The first block was shaped by the freedom of the Montessori classroom and the underlying lessons of empathy from my teachers and experiences at Pathfinder and Camp Surf. These experiences taught me to follow my passions, to think beyond myself and to care deeply about the world around me. Mixed-age classrooms built the second block, teaching me humility and respect for my peers who can be educators as influential as my formal teachers. This block also holds the lesson that my own knowledge is valuable and that I similarly have the responsibility to respectfully share this knowledge with my peers.

My time at Meher built these foundational blocks that I continue to stack others upon, holding within them the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic but, more importantly, the strong moral values and work ethic that carried me through my Masters of Urban Planning at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and will continue to carry me forward.

TIMOTHY YOSHIDA

I graduated from Meher Montessori in 2013. Reminiscing now, my favorite memories from Meher were the time spent at Pathfinder Ranch, Camp Surf and at Art class with Mrs. Shaeffer.

After Meher, I would follow my sister, Taylor Yoshida, to Chandler School located in Pasadena. I started at sixth grade at Chandler and would enjoy three years of wearing green. There, a major emphasis on STEAM was embedded into our education. Over the years I was active in athletics, participated in five sports, kept up with my studies, and had fun in all of the various electives.

Ultimately I would graduate with the 2016 Chandler School Fine Arts/ Visual Arts Award. From Chandler, I would venture to La Cañada at St. Francis High School where I would become a Golden Knight for the entirety of my high school career. During this time at St. Francis I was a dedicated member of the Robotics Team, the National Honors Society and the Track & Field team for all four years. Although being at an all-boys, religious school was different at first, it was there I learned the true meaning of brotherhood as well as gained many connections that I will uphold for many years to come. During my senior year I had the honor of receiving the St. Francis Golden Knight Scholarship Award and graduated with Summa Cum Laude.

This fall, I am heading to Occidental College, in Eagle Rock, deciding to enter with an undeclared major. Montessori has provided me with both a valuable foundation in core concepts such as history, geography, literature and mathematics as well as friends, teachers, and staff that have inspired me to be the best person I can be. As I go on to college, I can look back at the time I spent at Meher Montessori School and can say that it and all the people that have supported me have built and shaped me into the person I am today. I would like to thank everyone at Meher and elsewhere, for everything you have done for me.

BRYANNA LOPEZ

I graduated from the Meher Montessori Middle School in 2016 and just graduated from Ramona Convent Secondary School this year. I will soon begin a new journey at the University of California, Davis as a Physics major. My time at Meher started when I was only 2 1/2 years old. I learned so much about everything and my years there really prepared me for my future in high school. I was really nervous to start high school but Meher made it a really easy transition. The four years went by so fast, suddenly I was applying to colleges and anxiously waiting for my letters of acceptance. Once those letters arrived it was time to choose the right college for me.

After months of going over the different colleges that offered me admissions, I finally decided that my new journey would take place at the University of California, Davis. Unfortunately I did not get the opportunity to celebrate all the accomplishments with my classmates at school. These circumstances of the coronavirus really affected me because it did not allow me to enjoy my last few months of high school as I expected. Though these last few months have been difficult, I am excited to begin my college experience in September. I am grateful to have had the chance to attend such amazing schools and further my education at Davis. I hope to get my Bachelors in Science and continue onto Medical school. I want to be a doctor specializing in neurology. I am excited for my future and grateful to all those at Meher Montessori who helped me get where I am today. Thank you.

NISHTHA BHAKTA

Hello everyone! I am an alumni of Meher Montessori. It’s hard to believe it’s been so long since I was a student here. I used to be a little four-year-old waiting for my turn to use the pink tower in primary class. Now I’m seventeen and I’m on the path to go to college!

I want to say thank you to my teachers, peers, and administration at Meher who helped me develop the base for my values, my work ethic, and my drive to learn.

I graduated Cantwell-Scared Heart of Mary High School as the valedictorian of my class. Next fall, I will be attending UC San Diego, Eleanor Roosevelt College, as an undergraduate in Cognitive Science. I am proud to say I am a Meher alumni because the experience I got is what made me who I am today and it is the foundation for everything I will accomplish in the future. Thank you again!

EMMA CADENA

I am a Meher alumni of the class of 2014. I have many fond memories of Mr. Page and Mrs. Rivera’s class: working on multiplication tables, learning how to write in cursive and even being a lunch monitor back in the Primary. Then building boats in Mr. George’s first and second year class; being taught history and grammar lessons in Mr. Harrod’s and Mr. Page’s upper elementary classes. From Meher I went to middle school at the Chandler school, here my Meher education which taught me to be creative and curious was refined as Chandler opened the doors for a more STEM focused education. It was there I took my first Microbiology course and it wasn’t until my junior year of high school that I realized for certain that a researcher would be what I wanted to pursue as a career.

At my high school, Mayfield Senior School, a key value taught was the empowerment of women, being an all girls school who would’ve thought? We were taught to be unafraid to let our voices be heard, to ask the tough questions and be unafraid to become leaders in almost any setting; maybe Mayfield helped my develop my voice but it was all levels of my education that have shaped me to be the person I am today, or even the person I will be in a couple months as I go on to attend UC Santa Cruz in the fall.

To one day be a future scientist under that major of Molecular Cellular, and Developmental Biology. A future student athlete on the Women’s Cross Country and Track and Field Team (something I would have never of seen coming if Ms. Tenold didn’t help encourage me to become an athlete all those years ago). Meher taught me so many little things; how to be caring towards everyone in the room, to be a creative learner, and just how important community and friendships can be. From Meher I have two best friends that I know I can count on no matter how many days we are apart, and amazing teacher mentors who when I go back and visit remind me to be just as creative an ambitious as I was all those years ago.

NOELLE TAMURA

I was part of Meher Montessori’s Class of 2014. This year, I graduated high school from Flintridge Prep, and am going to Pitzer College next year. At this point in my life—just finished high school and about to start college—I can easily see the extent of Meher’s impact upon my interests and point of view. From my primary years to my lower elementary years, I partook in Meher’s Art class with Ms. Shaeffer and Mrs. Yoshida. There I found my passion for the arts by using a variety of mediums, including sketching, clay, paper mâché, and more. I remember going on field trips to local museums, one being the Getty, where we would explore and learn about the pieces and their respective artists. The creativity found in Meher’s Art class extended far beyond its walls into the classroom and everyday learning environment. I remember Mr. Page encouraging us to use the classroom materials in various ways, to try and solve the problem or project in front of us. In doing so, we were instilled with the curiosity and capacity to seek out the solution by our own means, while given the freedom of working at our own pace.

Such a mentality has carried me through a successful high school career and I plan on taking it with me to college. Due to the visual and creative teachings of Meher and Meher’s Art class, I have pursued art ever since, diving into the new and deeper waters of painting, drawing, and ceramics. I plan on pursuing Visual Arts as one of my majors at Pitzer College. In addition to majoring in Visual Art, I also plan on majoring in Environmental Analysis—another product of Meher Montessori’s teachings. Every year, grades 3-6 would go to two outdoor education camps: Pathfinder Ranch and Camp Surf. These camps have been instrumental in shaping my passion for and interest in the environment. At both camps, we were taught about the importance of sustainability in food, water, energy, ecosystems, and more. It was there that I first learned about native and invasive species, or food waste and composting. I also found I loved being outdoors, doing activities like hiking, or rock climbing. I looked forward to these trips each year, and every time we would learn something new. Mr. Harrod, who organized these trips, also emphasized sustainability in the classroom, leading by example through this vigorous recycling, trips to the Tree People, and working at Eaton Canyon even after he retired teaching. Because of the foundation built by Meher and these camps,

I can confidently pursue Environmental Analysis for the next four years and beyond. At its core, Meher is truly focused on allowing the student to find their interests in a loving, supportive environment. Without the stress of core curriculum at “regular” schools, where the teacher is dictating a lesson the whole time, Meher has given its students the freedom and responsibility to work on their own, take care of the materials they use, and develop a real curiosity for the subject. While Meher has shaped my passion for art and the environment, it also encouraged “free reading” during class hours, where I found I loved books and literature. Meher is a unique environment where subjects and ideas can blend and work together. Additionally, in this environment I was able to form strong bonds with people I’m still friends with today. People who have encouraged and supported me through middle and high school, and vice versa. Meher Montessori was, and still is, such a remarkable part of my childhood and development. I am so thankful for the incredible experience and the people who were there every step of the way.

NATHAN MARTINEZ