Privacy Policy

Montessori Makers LLC operates montessorimakerslearning.org. This page says what we collect, why we have it, and how to make us delete it. We collect as little as the site can function on, and we do not sell it.

1. What we collect

When you buy something

Your name, email address, billing and shipping address, and what you ordered. Payment is handled by Stripe. Card numbers go to Stripe directly and never touch our systems; we see only the last four digits and the outcome.

When you subscribe to the newsletter

Your email address, and your first name if you give it. Newsletter delivery runs on Beehiiv, which records opens and clicks so we can tell whether an issue was useful. You can unsubscribe from any issue and we stop.

When you download a gated resource

Your email address, and which resource you asked for. Requesting a gated download subscribes you to The Practitioner. Unsubscribing does not take the download away.

When you take a course

Your name as you enter it for a certificate, and the fact of purchase. Course journal work stays in your own notebook. We do not collect it, and there is no login or progress tracking on this site.

When you just visit

Standard server request data (IP address, browser, pages requested) plus aggregate analytics via Vercel, which does not use cookies to follow you between sites. We do not run advertising trackers or sell audience data.

2. Why we have it

• To take your order, deliver it, and support it afterward.
• To send the newsletter you asked for.
• To meet tax, accounting, and record-keeping obligations.
• To understand which pages and materials are useful, in aggregate.

We do not use your data to build advertising profiles, and we do not sell or rent it. Ever.

3. Who processes it

These are the services that touch your data, and the only reason each one does:

• Stripe. Payments, invoicing, and fraud prevention.
• Beehiiv. Newsletter delivery and subscription management.
• Vercel. Website hosting and aggregate traffic analytics.
• Google Workspace. Email correspondence with you.
• Shipping carriers. Name and address, to deliver physical orders.

Each holds data under its own privacy terms. We share only what the service needs to do its job, and we do not hand your information to anyone else except where the law requires it.

4. Student data

This site does not collect information about children. Nothing sold here asks for a student name, and no child ever creates an account on montessorimakerslearning.org. Buyers are adults.

The Reading Assessment Hub and the Field Guide are separate applications with their own privacy terms, and student data entered there is governed by those terms and by your agreement with us as a school. Where a school holds student records in one of our tools, the school remains the owner of that data. We are a processor acting on the school’s instructions, we do not use student data to train anything or market to anyone, and we return or delete it when the relationship ends.

Families using Montessori Makers at Home or the Family Companion app are on separate infrastructure entirely, deliberately kept apart from any school platform.

5. Cookies

The site uses only what it needs to work: session and preference cookies, plus whatever Stripe sets during checkout to keep a payment secure. Beehiiv sets a cookie on its subscribe form. We do not run third-party advertising or cross-site tracking cookies, which is why you are not being asked to dismiss a consent banner.

6. How long we keep it

Order and invoice records are kept seven years to satisfy tax and accounting requirements. Newsletter subscriptions are kept until you unsubscribe, after which we retain only a suppression record so we do not accidentally email you again. Correspondence is kept as long as it is useful for supporting you.

7. Your rights

Wherever you live, you can ask us to show you what we hold about you, correct it, delete it, or send it to you in a portable form. Depending on your jurisdiction, including the EU and UK under GDPR and California under the CCPA, some of those are legal rights rather than courtesies. Either way the answer is the same: write to info@montessorimakers.org and we will do it within 30 days. You never have to explain why.

One limit worth being straight about: we cannot delete an invoice we are legally required to keep for tax purposes. Everything else, yes.

8. Security

The site is served over HTTPS. Payment data is handled entirely by Stripe, a PCI Level 1 service provider. Access to order and subscriber records is limited to Montessori Makers LLC staff who need it. No system is perfect; if a breach ever affected your data we would tell you promptly rather than quietly.

9. Where data is processed

Montessori Makers LLC operates from the United States, and our processors are primarily US-based. If you write to us from outside the US, your information will be processed in the US under the terms on this page.

10. Changes

If this policy changes in a way that affects what we do with data we already hold, we will say so rather than silently updating the date at the top.

11. Reaching us

Montessori Makers LLC, Chicago, Illinois. info@montessorimakers.org.

See also our Terms and Refund Policy.