An MCS Treasure: A Tribute to Margaret McCleery Cota’s 40th year at MCS

Please join us for an Open House in Margaret's Honor
Friday, May 29
3:00- 5:00 pm
MCS campus

In a year that’s a milestone for MCS because of the long awaited purchase of a site for our school, another benchmark merits our collective celebration: Margaret McCleery Cota’s 40th year at MCS! That’s right, for four decades, Margaret has been a part of and a contributor to much that is in our school’s rich legacy. While that sort of longevity at any job is remarkable, it is perhaps even more so in such a demanding profession as teaching.  

Moving to California after instructing young children in her native Illinois, Margaret was hired by the Waterfalls in 1969 after they assumed ownership of MCS in its early years. That hiring was important not only for them at the moment but also for MCS’ future, because in addition to teaching Primary at first, Margaret later became the school's first director for several years and has gone on to become its most enduring teacher, so much so that for many her name is synonymous with her beloved Gold Door and even with the entire school.  

The Waterfalls moved on, class after class of students graduated, colleagues came and went, but Margaret remains. That tenure is due, as she will tell you, to the fact that she loves her work with her children and families. During her 40 years at MCS - from the counterculture 60’s through to this new millennium, Margaret has witnessed and helped shape MCS’ growth and maturity. Oh the stories she can tell of those years, both long ago and more recent; the heartaches and joys of the organization itself, the assistants she has trained, the parents she mentored, the children and families she initiated on their Montessori journey.  

Those years mirror Margaret’s own development as a teacher, a leader, a community member, but perhaps the ones they mirror most personally are those when she was an MCS parent, when her and Gordon’s children, Matthew and Elizabeth, enriched her life even more by becoming part of the MCS family. Years after graduating from MCS, Matthew and Elizabeth are well-grounded young adults, as are other MCS alumni who for the past few years have been returning to Gold door and to Margaret -- but this time as parents entrusting their own little ones to her tutelage.  

What a profound joy it must be for Margaret to see the success and caring exemplified by these hundreds of lives in which she has played a part, whether they were students she guided, colleagues she mentored or assisted in launching a Montessori career, or parents she reassured. And what a profound pleasure it is for us to see a woman who has so obviously found her life’s work. One observes it anytime they see Margaret leading a conga line at a staff meeting icebreaker, cuddling a child, modeling positive discipline for an overwhelmed parent or robustly leading her class at circle time in yet another round of the "Good Morning Song."  

There’s no mistaking it; Margaret is at home here, and she has helped us become a more welcoming home to thousands of families in these past 40 years. For that and for her remarkable achievement of 40 years of teaching at MCS, we invite you to join us in congratulating Margaret by leaving a note in the book you will find in the office. While the 2008-2009 school year does not mark her last year of teaching, the close of this year will mark a time to celebrate that milestone with her, to give her our book of well wishes, to party a bit with her (and she will be the first to tell you she enjoys celebration!) and to affirm her for the vital role she has played and continues to play in the MCS community.  

Meanwhile, on behalf of the dozens of peers she has influenced, the hundreds of students she has guided and the thousands of memories she has created among us over these past 40 years, we say a collective "thank you" to Margaret!