Studio Montessori, a SoMa childcare center that charged families up to $4,000 a month, closed abruptly in May 2026 after founder Zoe Paul emailed parents that the school would shut its doors the very next day. Behind that sudden announcement, according to former teachers, sat nearly eight years of staffing turmoil, state citations, and fear among foreign educators whose legal status in the country depended entirely on keeping their jobs.
The center, which opened in 2021 and served children as young as a few months old, had operated in SoMa for nearly eight years before it closed permanently the week after May 7, according to The San Francisco Standard. Paul told parents she was closing because continuing through the originally planned end of the school year was no longer sustainable, citing significant operational and financial challenges, staff absences, repeated staffing disruptions, financial pressures, and declining enrollment. The Standard’s reporting shows that Studio Montessori’s two locations received 13 state inspection visits between May 2022 and May 2026, including seven routine inspections or incident follow-ups, and additional visits in response to anonymous reports of alleged staffing and care issues.
Those inspections, conducted under the California Department of Social Services Community Care Licensing Division, turned up five substantiated allegations and three Type A offenses across the two campuses. A Type A deficiency is the state’s designation for a violation posing an immediate risk to children’s health, safety, or personal rights, a classification serious enough that providers must post the finding publicly at the facility for 30 days and give copies to parents, according to the California Department of Social Services. State licensing records list Studio Montessori’s main 8th Street site at a capacity of 31 children with a separate infant care component licensed for 12 infants, per Winnie.
A Lawsuit Alleges Chronic Understaffing
Former teacher Valentina Paz Araya Diaz has filed a lawsuit against Paul and Studio Montessori, alleging the center is chronically understaffed in classrooms and failed to meet state teacher-to-child ratios. California Code of Regulations Title 22 requires one teacher for every four infants and one teacher for every six toddlers in a toddler component, standards that childcare centers must maintain under state law. The Standard reports that Studio Montessori cut its six-person teacher staff in half after a string of firings and a resignation, leaving the center with half its teaching staff to cover its two rooms…