About Us

History: The Sisters of Mercy began the first Montessori program in Erie County in 1969. When that program closed in 1978, a group of parents and teachers carried on the program and organized themselves as the Montessori School of Erie County. The Montessori program continued with two classes of three-to-six year olds, teachers, assistants and parent volunteers. In 1985, the school purchased the former Montclair School Building from the Millcreek School District.

In 1995, the school, now grown to include classrooms for grades one through six, merged with the Children’s House of Erie Montessori School, located in St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 4701 Old French Rd., Erie. The combined schools operated two campuses until 1998, when the merger was terminated.

MCHE remained at the Sterrettania Road facility, while the former Children’s House of Erie became the independent Glenridge Montessori School. MCHE expanded programming again in 2004, when the board elected to apply for a Charter School License, which they were granted. The kindergarten to sixth grade’s private program then became the public Montessori Regional Charter School, while the Montessori Children’s House of Erie, Inc began serving only children ages 18 months through age five.

Collaborating with the MRCS, the MCHE provided three and four year old students enabling the MRCS kindergarten classes to continue to provide mixed age grouping. Both entities resided at the Sterrettania Road building.

In 2007, MCHE expanded once again to create the Lakeview campus. The Lakeview Montessori program provided year – round toddler and school-age programs at 2340 West Grandview Blvd. Erie, PA. In 2008, the Regional Charter School opted to provide educational services to kindergarten students only in the 3-6 classrooms. Since this was not our philosophy for a Montessori classroom, we moved all of our 3-6 year old students to the Lakeview Campus.

Due to our growth, however, this will not be our last move. We are currently collaborating with various entities to build a new facility adjacent to our current program and hope to be there for the ’09-’10 school year.