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It’s a sunny fall afternoon at the Children’s Own School (COS) on Main Street. Parents are shuffling in and out for conferences, an alarm is going off and Hiro Sudachi is sitting behind her desk.
It’s just another day for the new director of the school, who started July 1, and has been spending time getting to know the school and the Winchester community.
“This is a really wonderful place to be,” Sudachi says, of the 83-year-old school. “This is the beginning of a new stage for me. I get to work with these wonderful teachers and staff. They’re a fantastic team. There’s a lot of potential here.”
Children’s Own School was founded in 1942 by Dorothy Sprague Gove as a small Montessori preschool for kids ages 22 months to 6. The school is the oldest Montessori school in New England.
“This school community is very unique,” Sudachi says. “We have parents who came here as kids. We recently had an open house and we had a grandmother who was here with her daughter and her granddaughter.
“Generations,” she adds, laughing. “It’s such a wonderful trait of this school…and the building is so cool!”
The school is housed in a Victorian farmhouse at 86 Main St. and has a new addition in the back, five classrooms and three playgrounds.
In addition to its Montessori curriculum, COS also offers a rich enrichment program for all its students, including music, art, literacy, and Mass Audubon.
There are currently 81 children enrolled, not only from Winchester, but also Medford, Arlington and Malden. The school is welcoming new students for the 2026-27 academic year.
From Japan to Winchester
If you ask Sudachi about herself, she will tell you she was born in Ishikawa Prefecture in Japan, the youngest of three girls. In college, she double majored in English and education.
“When I was in college, I started thinking about my future,” she says, of her majors. “That’s when I thought about being an early education teacher. I always enjoyed working with young children and I enjoyed teaching, whether it was young kids or when I was tutoring in college.”
Sudachi decided she would apply to graduate schools in the United States or United Kingdom.
“I wanted to study abroad,” she says. “There were a lot of colleges in Boston and I loved Boston so I applied. My family wanted me to do it, they were so supportive.”
Sudachi was accepted to Boston College, moving to the city with her husband, an Icelander she’d met in Japan. In 2002, she graduated with a master’s degree in early childhood education.
Her first job was as a pre-school teacher in the Brookline Public Schools, where she worked one-on-one with autistic students.
“I was there for about 18 months before my husband and I decided to move to Iceland,” she says. “But it was too dark and too rainy there so we made a plan to come back to Boston.”
That was 2005.
Sudachi went back into education, landing a job at Harborlight Montessori in Beverly. She worked at the school for 15 years, starting as a pre-school teacher.
She says she became interested in Montessori after her oldest child was enrolled in a Montessori program, also 15 years ago.
“I felt Montessori was the best early education experience I could offer to my child because of its focus on the development of the whole child and its respectful approach to both the environment and people,” she says.
Asked how she went from the classroom into administration, Sudachi is thoughtful.
“It was a process that happened gradually,” she says. “The project director there was like my mentor and it was getting to a time where she was thinking of retiring. Around the same time, I did a course, Emerging Leaders Fellowship, at the American Montessori Society. That was a real turning point for me.”
Sudachi says she learned a lot about being in a leadership position in her field. That led her to apply to become a director at the school when her mentor finally retired in 2020.
“That was before anyone had heard of COVID,” she says, shaking her head at the memory. “That was in March….and then COVID started.”
Looking back, Sudachi admits it was a difficult time.
“Absolutely!” she says. “Every single day, you never knew what was happening. I know this is going to sound bad, but for me, it was a great experience because I learned a lot.”
As one of a team of three program directors, Sudachi says there was so much going on and the group really had to work as a team.
“I had to jump in as the newest program director,” she says. “We were working remotely in March and then we were back in June and open in July. Everyone was wearing masks and all the children in my program were under 3 so they didn’t have to wear them.”
Eventually, things calmed down. Life returned to normal
But in 2024, something changed. Sudachi realized she was ready to take the next step in her career.
“I was really starting to get interested in working in a school that focused on early childhood,” she says, adding Harborlight has students from 4 months to grade 8. “I felt that desire to work at an early childhood school.”
Sudachi says a consultant she was working with emailed her in the summer of 2024 with an open position at COS. Ironically, Sudachi had seen the job opening earlier in the spring, but decided not to apply.
This time, she took a chance.
“Oh, I remember coming for the interview,” she says, laughing. “When I saw this beautiful Victorian building and I saw what this school was about, I knew.”
And the more she researched the school, the more she wanted the job.
“I finally got the word in November 2024,” Sudachi says. “I was so very excited.”
Loving the job
Sudachi officially started her job in July, but feels like she’s only been at work for about a month and a half.
“School didn’t start until September so it feels like such a short time,” she says. “It was such an easy transition for me.”
Sudachi drives down from Hamilton every day, where she lives with her husband and three kids. When asked about the long drive, she shakes her head.
“Surprisingly, it’s not really that far,” she says. “I know what time I have to leave because of traffic so I organize our lives around that.”
Sudachi laughs, saying not even traffic is interfering with where she’s at in her life and career right now. It’s perfect.
“I’m in a really good place,” she says.
Asked what she wants people to know most about her, Sudachi laughs.
“I’m sure they’re not interested in me,” she says. “Make sure you tell them all about the school!”
Click here for more information about Children’s Own School or to register for the next school year.
Nell Escobar Coakley has been a journalist for more than 30 years. She is co-founder and editor-in-chief of Gotta Know Medford and editor of Winchester News. She can be reached at editor@winchesternews.org.
