Elena Martinez moved to the beautiful Flathead valley in 2019 from the St. Louis area with her family. She has worked with children for over 20 years, beginning in college as a nanny to eventually earning her A.M.I. Montessori certification in 2017. While taking classes in early childhood development, she began pursuing Montessori teachings and courses. After working with children in many different ways, she came to admire and honor the values, philosophy , and nature of Montessori. A series of fortunate events led to meeting the world renowned Dr. Annette Haines, a United States representative of A.M.I Montessori. It was then that Elena knew she wanted to dedicate her life to work as a Montessori Guide, and was gifted the opportunity to be sponsored and trained directly by Dr. Haines while working at her school, the Montessori Lab School at Grand Center.

Elena is of Hispanic, Indigenous, and Hungarian culture and deeply values the preservation and development of culture and languages. During her early career as a Montessori Guide she felt that the experience and education should benefit all children, especially secondary language learners. She made it her goal to work with children who come from anywhere in the world and from all socioeconomic classes. This led to the foundation of Glacier Montessori as the Flathead Valley’s first bilingual Montessori school. Elena knows first hand how much of a struggle it can be for middle and lower class families to find affordable Montessori education, and created a unique sliding scale to fulfill her mission.

When Miss Elena isn’t working on her dream career, she spends time with her husband and two daughters, plays in the beautiful outdoors, cooks delicious meals, works in her garden, and enjoys gathering with friends.