The Roxbury Roots Montessori will be celebrating its 5th anniversary.

Over a decade ago, Renee Jolley wrote her mother a letter promising that she would open a Montessori school in Roxbury by the time she turned 50.

The promise held. Roxbury Roots Montessori opened in November 2021, after the COVID-19 pandemic delayed construction and drove up costs. This fall, as families settle into another school year, the nonprofit school is approaching its fifth anniversary; a milestone for a small program built to bring a form of education often associated with affluent communities into the neighborhood where Jolley grew up.

“I’ve worked outside of Roxbury and I’ve seen what high quality looks like,” said Jolley, the school’s founder and head of school. “I’m bringing resources. I’m bringing high quality.”

Roxbury Roots serves children ages 2.9 to 6 in a mixed-age classroom. Jolley said the school currently enrolls 20 students, with additional families in the enrollment pipeline. The size is deliberate: Montessori education depends on teachers observing children closely and offering lessons when each child is ready.

Developed by Italian physician and educator Maria Montessori more than a century ago, the approach gives children sustained time to choose work within a carefully prepared classroom. Teachers act as guides rather than directing every child through the same lesson at the same moment.

Materials are hands-on and arranged so children can reach, use and return them independently. The American Montessori Society identifies trained teachers, mixedage groups, specially designed materials, student-directed work and uninterrupted work periods as core elements of a high-quality program.

That freedom is not the absence of structure, Jolley said. Children may repeat an activity because repetition builds concentration and mastery. Over the traditional three-year cycle, classroom work expands from practical tasks and sensory materials into literacy and mathematics. Younger children watch older classmates; older children practice leadership and responsibility.

The model has attracted research interest, though the evidence should not be overstated. A 2017 peer-reviewed study followed 141 children who entered lotteries for two public Montessori magnet schools in a high-poverty city. Over three years, the Montessori students showed stronger growth in academic achievement, social understanding and mastery orientation, and the income-based achievement gap narrowed. The authors cautioned that the schools used a rigorous version of Montessori and that larger studies were needed before broad conclusions could be drawn.

For Black and other children of color, Jolley sees an additional benefit in attending a high-quality school where cultural belonging is central rather than incidental. Families have told her they do not want their child to be the only brown child in a classroom.

Roxbury Roots keeps Montessori’s academic framework and surrounds it with an African-centered curriculum. Children encounter books, songs and images that reflect their lives. The school observes Ancestor Day (in lieu of Columbus or Indigenous Peoples Day), participates in Black Birders Week and offers enrichment that has included drumming, capoeira and chess taught by neighborhood elders. Friday visits to Thornton Street Farm extend the classroom into the community.

“The kids are getting all of it,” Jolley said. “They get the whole package, the whole experience: a trained teacher, beautiful environment, well taken care of materials — everything.”

The school’s roots are practical as well as philosophical. Jolley and her original co-head, Kendall Allen, spent months working from Dudley Cafe while searching for a Roxbury location. Local contractors and Black-owned businesses helped build the space, website and signs. The Wildflower network, which supports teacher-led micro-schools, provided much of the startup funding and helped Jolley navigate pandemic-era relief and banking requirements. Jolley now mentors other educators who hope to open schools of their own.

That communal support has not erased the strain of running a small independent school. Jolley described finances as the school’s greatest vulnerability. Roxbury Roots uses a flexible tuition model, accepts child-care vouchers and participates in Boston Universal Pre-K. She said annual tuition ranges from $5,000 to $19,500, with many families paying about $14,000 to $16,000 after conversations about what they can afford.

The school currently receives no philanthropic support for operations, Jolley said, leaving it dependent on tuition, vouchers and public pre-K funding. With a small enrollment, a delayed or missing payment can quickly cause trouble. The effort to remain affordable also limits what the school can offer prospective administrators and teachers.

Administrative capacity is the next challenge. Jolley is trying to strengthen the board, hire a cohead and build a fundraising and marketing operation. This work, she explained, cannot fall to the same person leading the school. Jolley once hoped word of mouth alone would attract families committed to the mission, but visibility matters when a small school must fill nearly every seat.

Those pressures make the anniversary more than a ceremonial marker. Roxbury Roots has survived a pandemic opening, construction inflation and leadership transitions while preserving a neighborhood-based alternative for families in Roxbury and nearby Dorchester and Mattapan.

Jolley encourages parents considering Montessori to attend an open house, see the classroom, learn how the curriculum works and ask whether its pace fits their child and their own expectations. The method may not suit every family, she said, but access to a thoughtful choice should not depend on leaving the neighborhood.

“They deserve it,” Jolley said.