Giant Montessori School Chain Files For Bankruptcy

Forbes

3 days ago

Just three years ago, Higher Ground was calling itself 'the future of education.' A promotional video touted 'a mission to redesign education from the ground up' with a mixture of 'rigor and individualization' across its family of 150 schools. Now most of those schools have been shuttered by foreclosure, and the company has filed a pre-arranged Chapter 11 bankruptcy plan.
Ray Girn graduated from the University of Toronto in 2004 with a BS in Psychology, then went to work in LePorte Schools, a chain of Montessori schools in Southern California. By 2010 he was CEO of the chain and, in his telling, raised a 'nascent family business' into 'what became North America's largest Montessori network.' He also met his wife, Rebecca.
In 2016, the Girns launched Higher Ground Education in Austin, Texas. The mission, said Girn, was to 'mainstream and modernize Montessori education through extending its principles across infancy and into high schools.' Rebecca was the Chief Programs Officer and General Counsel.
Higher Ground grew both through acquisition and creation. It was the parent group for Guidepost Montessori, a huge network of Montessori schools located across the US and in some overseas locations. The Academy for Thought and Industry, later rebranded Guidepost Academy, that promised 'a school dedicated to a union of classical and Montessori approaches to education: a classical liberal arts emphasis on history and great books, and a Montessori emphasis on independence and agency.'
Higher Ground drew the attention of venture capitalists. HGE created their own program for certifying Montessori teachers (MACTE accredited). They acquired a variety of other businesses, including Tinycare, Neighborschools, FreshGrade, and, the remains of AltSchool, the San Francsico-based tech-based microschool start-up that was drawing glowing reviews in 2015, but by 2019 was instead drawing headlines like Fortune's "How an Education Startup Wasted Almost $200 Million."
In 2022, Girn announced that he was launching a Montessori think tank called Montessorium. The result was a business that calls itself 'Montessori all grown up.' The Montessorium initiative is headed up by two other Austin entrepreneurs. Matt Bateman also came from LePorte (Girn appears to have brought several LePorte folks with him) and was Higher Ground's Vice President of Pedagogy; currently his LinkedIn profile lists his occupation as Philosopher (self-employed). The other Montessorium leader in MacKenzie Price, an education entrepreneur who has been trying to expand her network of cyberschools into other states. Her signature business is 2HourLearning, which promises that students can get a full education in just two hours a day with a computerized tutor. Montessorium promises to 'combine the full suite of Montessori practices and hands-on materials with a state-of-the-art personalized learning software platform.'
The HGE network of schools was also growing. In 2018 HGE operated 12 schools; by 2022, the number as 101, and by 2024, HGE had 150 schools in its stable.
And yet, Higher Ground was in trouble.
In January of 2025, Bateman left the board. In February of this year, Maris Mendes, Senior Vice President of School Launch at Higher Ground (and another LePorte hire) announced that Girn was leaving the company he had created. And that wasn't the only bad news:
We face the reality today, not only of a significant shift in the leadership of the organization, but also the reality that we have made mistakes that we are in the midst of acknowledging and resolving. In our eagerness to meet the vast vision of our mission, we overextended ourselves, growing our school network beyond what we could effectively support, both financially and operationally. As a result, we are now in the midst of closing nearly 1/3 of the school communities that have so lovingly been built over the past 9 years.
Girn's bio at his newest venture describes his departure:
After some years of growing differences with Higher Ground Education's board and lead investors, in 2025, Ray left the organization to pursue his missionary work on his own terms once again.
That disagreement appears to have been over whether to continue the 'hyper-growth' of the business, or to transition to a more 'mature, stable, and profitable' operation. According to court documents, after several board departures, Girn reappointed himself to the board at the end of March, the resigned again a few weeks later.
Elliot Haspel at The74 reported analysis by Mendes, then the newly-minted co-CEO:
According to Mendes, the driving force behind the closures is the same hyper-scaling strategy Higher Ground's investors saw as a selling point; she writes that, 'In our eagerness to meet the vast vision of our mission, we overextended ourselves, growing our school network beyond what we could effectively support, both financially and operationally.'
By the end of May, virtually all HGE executives, including Mendes, had left to join Guidepost Global Education (GGE), an international operation that shares the same branding and logo as HGE's Guidepost Montessori. At this point, court documents note, HGE did not have any elected officers. Just seven schools remained in the HGE portfolio. An e-mail to Higher Ground Education for comment was returned as undeliverable.
On June 27, Higher Ground Education, LLC, filed a pre-arranged Chapter 11 bankruptcy plan with the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Texas. It states that in early 2025, HGE defaulted on several key loans and could not secure refinancing or new capitol, resulting in the foreclosure and sale of the vast majority of their assets and schools.
"The Debtors simply could not maintain or generate sufficient liquidity to fund operations," the disclosure statement explains, despite having raised over $335 million in funding since 2020. The statement also reveals tyhat the business "has never had positive cash flows from operations—resulting in the continuous need for external funding." Operating losses exceeded a staggering $440 million over the past five years. That negative cash flow included both losses at the school level and monthly corporate costs of $2.5 million. Many attempts at finding the money failed.
2HourLearning is proposed as the plan sponsor, providing $8 million to finance the bankrupcty case. 2HourLearning would acquire the company that results from the restructuring. GGE would contribute some intellectual property and curriculum assets back to the new company.
The U.S. Department of Justice has already spoken up in objection to the $8 million funding and menuevers that promiote junior creditors, including GGE, to a higher priority. As reported by Benjamin Hernandez at Bloomberg Law, U.S. Trustee Lisa L. Lambert objected to Higher Ground's proposal to roll up $2 million of existing debt to a higher tier of payment priority.
Hearing is scheduled for September 3 for the case (Case No. 25-80121-11).
But this whole story is about far more than business miscalculation followed by collapse. The implosion of HGE and Guidepost Montessori was sudden and left uncounted families adrift mid-year with no school for their children.
CBS reported from Denver, where five Guidepost schools closed with no notice:
"The teachers are so loving and caring. It's sad that my daughter isn't going to be with the teachers that she's come to know and trust," said Cait, whose daughter has been at Guidepost Montessori since she was 4 months old. "Now we're given four weeks to try to find that that same availability and also aligning with the values and the care that we want for our child."
LoudonNow reported on a Guidepost school that closed so quickly that teacher and student belongings were still locked inside.
Elena Tyng and her husband, both police officers, have two sons enrolled at the school and have been relying on family to help out while they look for other options.
'I got the email Wednesday but we were asleep and woke up to a text message about it from a friend and I was like, 'oh my god, what are we going to do?' she said.
As reported by WTMJ in Milwaukee, parents at one Guidepost schools had at least a few weeks notice of the school's closing in March:
"I'm frustrated, and I'm really angry," parent Monte Driscoll told TMJ4 News. 'They're taking advantage of families and children—families that are trying to do the best for their kids—and then putting them all in a frantic, frustrating situation.'
Those events were repeated for around 140 schools. The collapse of Higher Ground Education may seem like a simple business story, but when businesses falter and fold in the education space, there are always students, parents, teachers, and families that are collatoral damage.
If the plan finally wins approval, 2HourLearning will add to its growing set of edu-business holdings. Maris Mendes is now the U.S. CEO of Guidepost Global Education. The Girn's have launched a new school, 'A dream school. Handcrafted by pioneering educators. Nestled on four-and-a-half acres of gorgeous Texas Hill Country.' I have reached out on X to Girn for comment and will add it should he reply.
The bankruptcy plan includes representation for the many stakeholders, foreign and domestic investors, the Girns, and the subsidiaries of HGE. It expresses a desire to preserve jobs and service for the seven remaining schools. But for the rest of Higher Ground Education's customers, it's already too late.