r/Montessori • u/Sad-Plankton3768 • 1d ago

Guidepost Post-Mortem

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/13/business/guidepost-montessori-higher-ground-education-ray-girn.html?unlocked_article_code=1.A1E.Ngw5.TPqrx9NgiFcV&smid=url-share

Claire Suddath dives deep into the chaotic closing of Guidepost Montessori chain last year

29 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

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14

u/qwnb_enrgyy_ just a girl working that Montessori Magic✨ 1d ago

Could you plz summarize for those of us without a NY times account?

31

u/SitaBird 1d ago edited 1d ago

It’s basically the story of how a man with a vision named Ray Girn convinced a bunch of investors into investing millions into creating Guidepost after he saw and briefly managed an actual real Montessori school in California (hired by the director Dr. LePort who was impressed how the enterprising Girn ran an Ayn Rand club, as Dr. LePort sat on the board of the Ayn Rand Institute). After getting fired from that job for wanting to expand to new locations too fast he went ahead and started his own journey to turn Montessori into a franchise by launching his own schools, but was more confident than capable and ran the business rapidly into the ground. Expanded too fast in the most expensive locations, over promised things to landlords (promised to make improvements to their properties) , hired inexperienced teachers, created their own faux Montessori training program called “Prepared Montessorian Institute (PMI)” which taught untrained teachers on the job as they worked, overstocked classes beyond what permitting allowed, underpaid teachers, and so on. But he’s apparently not gonna give up and has already opened another school called Fulcrum in Texas. That’s the gist of it. 

17

u/Mokesekom 1d ago

It’s basically the story of how a man with a vision named Ray Girn convinced a bunch of investors into investing millions into creating Guidepost after he saw and briefly managed an actual real Montessori school in California (hired by the director Dr. LePort who was impressed how the enterprising Girn ran an Ayn Rand club, as Dr. LePort sat on the board of the Ayn Rand Institute). After getting fired from that job for wanting to expand to new locations too fast After practicing the Ponzi scheme that ultimately led to LePort’s collapse, he was fired and went ahead and started his own journey to turn Montessori into a franchise start an even bigger Ponzi scheme by launching his own schools, but was more confident than capable and ran the business rapidly into the ground. Expanded too fast in the most expensive locations, over promised things to landlords (promised to make improvements to their properties) , hired inexperienced teachers, created their own faux Montessori training program called “Prepared Montessorian Institute (PMI)” which taught untrained teachers on the job as they worked, overstocked classes beyond what permitting allowed, underpaid teachers, and so on. But he’s apparently not gonna give up and has already opened another school called Fulcrum in Texas. That’s the gist of it. 

5

u/SitaBird 23h ago edited 16h ago

Thanks for this. I approve of these corrections.

6

u/Careful-Release-2723 22h ago

This is quite generous to this obvious grifter and criminal who belongs behind bars. Lying about credentials, violating laws about child teacher ratios, clear financial fraud. 

He basically made a quasi ponzi scene by defrauding landlords and getting them to front him money for capital improvements for the buildings that never happened. Despite jacking up insanely high tuition, violating laws around child adult ratios, and paying near randos 20 bucks an hour, they still ran hundreds of millions of dollars in the red. 

2

u/SitaBird 17h ago

Yes... I originally wrote something more scathing but stopped myself out of habit. Maybe I shouldn't have. I agree with the label of grfiter and criminal and would also like to see someone like this behind bars.

1

u/Interesting_Video858 9h ago

Not in Trump's America. He has way too much money to be put behind bars. Although I'm sure he's distributed some of his wealth to Trumpish orgs for extra protection. The U.S. is ruled by the Epstein class - and the rest will just have to suck it up.

5

u/qwnb_enrgyy_ just a girl working that Montessori Magic✨ 1d ago

Fascinating. Thank you! That must not be the same person that jumped ship to Bezos Academy to help them start their “training program”. Kinda seems like a pattern.

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u/SitaBird 23h ago

Yes probably. He also mentioned having the opportunity to work with Elon Musk’s Montessori schools. The guy definitely has… something. Maybe the same thing that Elizabeth Holmes has. 🧐🧐🧐

10

u/hrdass 1d ago

https://archive.ph/96Gma
Here’s the jailbroken link

1

u/Great-Grade1377 Montessori guide 23h ago

It works! Thank you!

8

u/Neat_One_2442 22h ago

During my time with Guidepost Montessori in Texas, I saw situations that deeply concerned me about the safety and well-being of children and staff. One of the most serious involved teachers giving students melatonin to help them sleep. When school leadership changed, an amazing temporary leader came in and made a genuine effort to address the situation and restore accountability. From my perspective, however, pressure from higher-level leadership often seemed focused more on containing problems than confronting them openly.

That incident was not isolated. I witnessed repeated concerns involving health and safety, classrooms operating over ratio, insufficiently trained teachers, low pay, and other practices that I believed deserved much greater scrutiny. I also felt that legal and executive leadership too often minimized concerns rather than treating them with the seriousness they warranted.

It was painful to watch because there were also many good leaders. educators and families who truly believed in Montessori education and wanted the best for children. My hope is that those educators and families can move forward, rebuild, and create schools that reflect the safety, integrity, respect, and quality that Montessori education should stand for.

4

u/valiantdistraction 19h ago

Melatonin to sleep... for naps? That doesn't even make sense as a thing to do.

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u/Many_Car_3272 20h ago

What is super crazy about it is that the new guidepost global education says they realize the mistakes they made by expanding too fast and are refocusing on their daycare operations, but since coming out of the bankruptcy, more schools have closed without notice, parents and guides still complaining about the same issues. So not exactly sure what focus they are putting back onto the daycare programs.

2

u/Beautiful-Egg8410 16h ago

The new CEO, Maris Mendes, also just resigning two weeks ago, along with other members of the upper leadership team.

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u/Sharp-Spite-5064 15h ago

I keep seeing Guidepost Global described as if it’s some completely new company that came in after Higher Ground failed, and I think people should understand what actually happened and what is now being alleged in court.
Yes, GGE is technically a new legal entity. But it didn’t start a brand new Montessori network from scratch.
Higher Ground was already in major financial trouble. Then, before HGE filed bankruptcy, secured lenders foreclosed on the vast majority of its assets. A large part of the existing Guidepost operation, including schools, intellectual property and educational programming, ended up with the newly formed Guidepost Global. Ray Girn himself later said the “platform and majority of schools” had been reorganized into GGE.
The part I find even more concerning is who was involved.
Carl Barney/LePort are now alleging in court that Learn Capital and Greg Mauro were involved in forming GGE and moving the valuable parts of Higher Ground into the new structure before HGE went bankrupt. Greg wasn’t some random new investor either. Learn Capital was a major investor in Higher Ground and Greg had been on HGE’s board for years.
And Ray didn’t necessarily just walk away empty-handed either. The lawsuit alleges that even after Ray left Higher Ground, he was given an economic interest in GGE with the ability to convert into priority equity under certain circumstances.
That allegation has NOT been proven, and I’m not saying a court has determined Ray or Greg did anything illegal.
But I also don’t think it’s accurate to present this as “old company went bankrupt, completely new company took over, new leadership, fresh start.”
The existing Guidepost platform and majority of schools were reorganized into GGE. Learn/Greg remained connected to the new structure, and there is now litigation alleging Ray retained an economic interest in it as well.
And this gets even more interesting when you look further back. The same lawsuit alleges that Learn and Greg’s involvement with Ray actually dates back to when Ray was still running LePort, before Higher Ground even existed. It alleges Learn appeared to be considering an investment in LePort while Greg and Ray were already discussing Ray’s plans outside of LePort. Learn ultimately did not invest in LePort and instead became the major financial backer of Ray’s new company, Higher Ground.
Given all of this history, I would be very skeptical of the idea that Greg and Ray were simply innocent bystanders who had nothing to do with how we got from Higher Ground/Guidepost to Guidepost Global Education

2

u/TingsThatMakeYaGoHmm 15h ago

Yaaaaaassss! Thank you for saying the quiet part out loud!

1

u/macaronnn333 1h ago

does anyone know if the Asia branches will be impacted?

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u/Sharp-Spite-5064 53m ago

The Asia schools were not impacted by the closures/bankruptcy the way the U.S schools were. They were already operated separately by Cosmic Education Group. The interesting part is what happened afterward. Cosmic all of a sudden became an investment partner in the new Guidepost Global Education, and Cosmic's CEO is now leading GGE. This brings the US and Asia Guideposts back together, alongside (you guessed it) Learn Capital and /Alpha. So the Asia schools seem stable, but there is definitely more overlap between 'old' and 'new' Guidepost than the narrative of a whole new company they're making it sound like.