Mixed ages in one room, a shelf a child chose herself.
Montessori schools
NavEd fits the way Montessori schools already run: grades, attendance, records and a transcript, without asking anyone to be a district first.
A guide marks a lesson mastered instead of scoring it, and a room that spans three years of age doesn't have to fit into a single grade. NavEd handles the enrollment, tuition, attendance, and forms that keep a Montessori school running underneath that work.
This is you if
- Your room groups children across a three-year age span, like Primary or Lower Elementary, rather than one grade.
- The adult leading the room is a guide with an AMI or AMS diploma, not a state teaching credential.
- You track a child's progress against materials and lessons, not a running percentage or class average.
- Families hear how their child is doing through a narrative conference a couple of times a year, not a report card.
- You already use, or have looked at, Transparent Classroom, Montessori Compass, or a similar tool built specifically for Montessori records.
What NavEd does for you
Mastery marks in the gradebook
On the Gradebook tab, a guide can mark a lesson Mastered, Progressing, or Needs Improvement instead of typing in a score. Say the limit up front: entering that mark forces the stored numeric grade to 0.00, the mark is excluded from GPA and averages, and the generated report prints a literal 0.00% in its place. Use it for a guide's own tracking, not for anything handed to a family. See "What is still manual" below.
Cohorts that don't reset with the grade
Rosters and attendance can be built around a cohort spanning your three-year plane instead of a single grade level. A cohort can carry forward from one year to the next rather than resetting the way a single grade does.
The paperwork around the room
Enrollment applications handle admissions intake, a tuition plan sets one total per household for the year and bills it in a set number of installments, with a manual per-household override where a sibling rate or a scholarship changes the number, and forms can build a waitlist sign-up or a conference scheduling page. None of it touches how you teach. It is the annual administrative load that sits around the room.
What is still manual
- There is no scope-and-sequence album as its own object. Nothing tracks each material in your curriculum with a per-child status against it.
- Grading, curriculum, and reporting are still organized around a single grade and subject. Cohorts help with rosters and attendance across a three-year plane, but grading has not caught up to that yet.
- Mastery marking is crippled today. Entering that mark forces the stored numeric grade to 0.00, the mark is excluded from GPA and averages, and the generated report prints a literal 0.00% in its place. Keep pulling family-facing reports from your existing Montessori-specific tool until that is fixed, and use NavEd's mastery marks for your own tracking in the meantime.
- There is no deposit field and no sibling discount logic. A deposit or a second-child rate is a number you decide and enter as that household's override.
- There is no fast, tap-in observation tool for logging a note while you're walking the room.
- There is no built-in way to export a departing student's full record into the format a receiving graded school expects. If a family is transferring out, plan to put that together by hand.
- If your day runs inside a scope-and-sequence album, keep the tool you use for that. NavEd is built to carry enrollment, tuition, attendance, and forms around it, not to replace it.
Getting started
- Decide what still needs your Montessori-specific tool, like observations and album tracking, and what is just the paperwork around it.
- Set up a cohort for each three-year plane so attendance and rosters follow your grouping instead of a single grade.
- Build an enrollment or waitlist form for the families you admit each year.
- Set up a tuition plan for the year and its installments, entering a per-household override wherever a family's total is different.
- Try marking a lesson Mastered, Progressing, or Needs Improvement in the gradebook for your own use, and hold off on a class report for that subject until the print limit above is fixed.
- Start free. The first five students are free on every plan. See the pricing calculator for anything past that.
Questions Montessori schools ask
Can a guide record mastery instead of a percentage grade?
On the Gradebook tab, yes, with one limit you should know before you rely on it. Entering that mark forces the stored numeric grade to 0.00, the mark is excluded from GPA and averages, and the generated report prints a literal 0.00% in its place. So the mark is safe for a guide's own tracking and not yet safe for a report you hand a family.
Does NavEd handle a mixed-age room, not a single grade?
Attendance and rosters can be built around a cohort that spans your three-year plane and carries forward year to year instead of resetting, rather than a single grade level. Grading and curriculum tools are still organized around a grade and a subject, so that part hasn't caught up to a three-year plane yet.
What about our scope-and-sequence album?
NavEd doesn't have an album as its own object today: nothing tracks each material with a per-child status against it. If your day runs inside an album, keep the tool you use for that and let NavEd carry the paperwork around it.
Do we have to give up Transparent Classroom or Montessori Compass?
No. Keep whichever tool handles your observations and album tracking. NavEd is built to run enrollment, tuition, attendance, and forms alongside it, not replace it.
What does it cost to start?
The first five students are free on every plan, and keeping records, issuing a transcript, taking attendance, enrolling a student, and getting your own data back out are never behind a paywall. For anything past five students, see the pricing calculator.
What it costs
The first five students are free on every plan, no trial and no expiration. Keeping records, issuing a transcript, taking attendance, enrolling a student, and getting your own data back out are never behind a paywall. See the full pricing calculator.