Montessori Elementary School near Burlingame
The reason most families end up at Mills rather than somewhere closer: almost every other Montessori school within reach of here stops at kindergarten. Mills is about 8 miles from Burlingame, at 1400 Hillside Blvd. in South San Francisco.
Why families here choose it
The practical case from Burlingame is unglamorous — a published price list, a day that covers a working day, and a program that does not evict your child at kindergarten.
Burlingame has strong public schools and a lot of private competition, so families coming north to us are usually doing it deliberately: for the mixed-age classrooms, or because they want Montessori to continue past the kindergarten year rather than stopping there.
What Montessori elementary school at Mills actually is
Elementary Montessori is not preschool with more reading. The work gets genuinely hard — long research projects running for weeks, extended writing, mathematics carried from concrete materials into abstraction, and findings presented to the class. It opens with the largest possible frame, the story of how the universe, the earth and human beings came to be, and hangs history, geography, biology and mathematics off it, because six- to eleven-year-olds want the whole story rather than the chapter. Collaboration is the default rather than an exception: work is negotiated, argued over and produced in pairs and small groups.
- Continuity is the whole argumentA child who already knows how to plan a morning and finish what they start walks into a curriculum built on those habits, instead of one that has to replace them.
- Big questions, deliberatelyCosmic education: the frame first, the specifics second.
- One school, one commuteFamilies with a toddler and a fourth-grader do a single drop-off. The eleven-year-old is still in the building the two-year-old is starting in.
The details that decide it
| Our campus | 1400 Hillside Blvd., South San Francisco, CA 94080 |
| Distance from Burlingame | About 8 miles |
| Getting here | North on Highway 101 or El Camino Real. |
| Area | San Mateo County |
| Local public district | Burlingame School District |
| Ages served | Two through fifth grade |
| Hours | Monday to Friday, 7:30 am – 6:00 pm |
| Enrollment | Open year-round, subject to availability |
Distance is approximate and measured in a straight line. The honest test is to drive it once at drop-off time — book a tour and you will.
What Montessori elementary school costs
Elementary and summer run full day or extended full day rather than mornings, so from Burlingame the question is which end of the day you need rather than how much of it.
- AgesThrough 5th grade
- Rates$1,400 full day · $1,750 extended full day, monthly, plus a $450 annual materials and testing fee. Every fee is on the tuition page.
- SchedulesMorning, full day, or extended full day 7:30 am to 6:00 pm — three, four or five days a week.
- EnrollmentOpen year-round, subject to availability, with a one-time $200 new-student fee.
What Burlingame families ask about Montessori elementary school
- Will my child transfer to a traditional middle school all right?Yes — children leave at the end of fifth grade for public and private middle schools. The habits elementary Montessori builds are the ones middle school assumes and rarely teaches.
- Can a child join without a Montessori background?Yes, and children do. It takes a settling-in period — a child used to being told what to do next often finds the freedom harder than the work — and we would want to talk through your child specifically first.
- Is the Montessori elementary school different for families traveling from Burlingame?No — there is one program and one campus. What changes with distance is the schedule that suits you: families driving further usually choose the extended full day so they are not fighting the peak twice a day.
- Do you have a campus in Burlingame?No — and we would rather be straightforward about it. Mills Montessori has a single campus at 1400 Hillside Blvd., South San Francisco, CA 94080, about 8 miles from Burlingame. Everything on this page is about that one school and the families who drive to it.
- How long does the drive from Burlingame really take?North on Highway 101 or El Camino Real. We will not pretend to know your morning — the useful thing is to drive it once at drop-off time. Book a tour for 8:45 am and you will find out on the way in.
- Do you give priority to families from Burlingame?No. Enrollment is open year-round and offered in the order places come free, regardless of which town you are driving from.
- Is there before and after care for a longer commute?The extended full day runs 7:30 am to 6:00 pm, which is the whole point for families driving any distance. It is a schedule, not an add-on billed by the hour.
Montessori Elementary School in other areas
Come and watch a morning
Tours run mid-morning during the work cycle, year-round, by appointment.