History
Raritan Valley Montessori was founded as a Montessori school in 1967 in the South Branch section of Hillsborough, New Jersey. It is one of the oldest Montessori schools in New Jersey and one of the older ones in the United States. The original name was The Carroll School. In 1969, the school changed ownership from a private individual to a parent cooperative and was renamed Raritan Valley Montessori School. In June of 1985, the school was sold to Leslie S. Meldrum, once again becoming a private corporation. In August of 1994, the school moved to Flagtown. In September of 1997, the Elementary program moved to Bridgewater and became a non-profit school, Raritan Valley Montessori Academy. In September of 1998, 2 more classrooms opened at the Academy. In September of 2003, we added our Stepping Stones program for children aged 18 months to 3 years in our Hillsborough site. The name of the Hillsborough site changed to The Cherry Blossom. For the fall of 2009 we are adding a Stepping Stones program at the Bridgewater site.
We are now in two locations, one site is in Bridgewater and our second site, The Cherry Blossom, is in Hillsborough. Both locations have programs for children aged 18 months-10 years (4th grade) . We are affiliated with the American Montessori Society (AMS), in the process of reaccreditation by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) and licensed by the State of New Jersey.