Sara Hruska, Director & President

Sara is the founder of Spark Montessori in Chicago, Illinois. Sara founded Spark because she was passionate about her children, her community, and the power of the Montessori Method for child development. Sara has spent the last 12 years in the corporate world learning through experience how to build and maintain client relationships, develop brands, and lead teams. And while this experience has taught her much, she always had the entrepreneurial itch to start an organization with a more meaningful mission. Having children provided Sara with the ‘Spark’ of inspiration that she needed to launch Spark Montessori, a modern, authentic Montessori school that promotes and supports the values that are both personally meaningful and culturally relevant. Sara attended Southwest Montessori Preschool in Palos Park and has a Bachelors in Speech Communications with an Italian minor from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign.

Pari Schacht, Director & Secretary

Pari is a parent, entrepreneur, and educator with a passion for creating high quality educational experiences. She spent the last decade building Nurturing Wisdom Tutoring, a company with more than 200 tutors in Chicago and San Francisco. In both cities, Nurturing Wisdom helped students supplement their education and meet their academic goals. In addition, Pari played a key role in opening two schools, one in Chicago and one in San Francisco. She is also an advisor to educational companies. Her two children are both enrolled at Mission Montessori, a school she founded in 2017 to bring a comprehensive Montessori education to families in San Francisco.

Amanda Vogel, Director & Treasurer

Amanda is the founder and director of Vine Academy.  Prior to Vine Academy, Amanda was the vice president of Nurturing Wisdom Tutoring for ten years where she created highly effective curriculum for all types of tutoring: executive functioning, academic programs, and test preparation. Amanda has a master’s degree in special education from Truman State University and previously taught 5th through 8th grade special education. Her teaching experience made her an expert in differentiating and creating curriculum for a diverse set of learners.  Amanda was fortunate to be supported and encouraged in fulfilling her dream of opening a school, Vine Academy. At Vine, Amanda uses her curricular expertise to ensure that the school’s curriculum is fully customized for students of all ability levels, including those who are gifted and/or have learning differences.

Yuen Liang, Director

Yuen Liang has had the privilege of working in diverse industries and multiple business functions, from options trading to talent recruitment and marketing. The connecting thread she observed was that people are at their best when they engage in purposeful work that they have chosen. When she discovered that Dr. Montessori’s pedagogy is based on similar observations in children, she was excited to learn more. Her work in Montessori has included receiving a Primary Teaching Diploma from NAMC to teach in Okinawa, Japan, and an Assistant to Elementary Certification at Loyola University’s Washington Montessori Institute. She also holds a B.A. in Economics and Philosophy from the University of Michigan and a Master’s in Management from the Australian National University. Currently Yuen works as a consultant to Montessori schools.

MARGARET MALEWSKI, Director

Margaret Malewski served as Director of Development with Higher Ground Education, a chain of Montessori schools, working to source new preschool premises and make a financial projection for each proposed project. Prior to this, she was co-founder and CEO of Liquivision Products, Inc., a company designing, manufacturing and selling SCUBA-diving computers worldwide. Margaret holds an MBA from INSEAD business school. On the sale of her business in 2014 to a strategic acquirer, Margaret re-located to Annapolis, Maryland, where she lives with her husband and two children.

RYAN PUZYCKI, Director

Ryan Puzycki is the Director of Finance & Operations at Mission Montessori in San Francisco. Ryan’s career in finance began at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and continued onto Wall Street, where he worked most recently in equity research before making the leap into education. While helping a small group of Montessori schools expand nationally, he learned about and came to love the logistics and economics of running schools. He is happy to bring his experience working with educational nonprofits to Mission Schools. Ryan holds an undergraduate degree from Boston University and an MBA from New York University.