Campus & Groves

A Beautiful and Safe Place to Learn

The Campus

The MIR campus is designed on a village model, with separate buildings linked by pathways and an iconic pedestrian bridge across 12 acres.

MIR is nestled among citrus groves, a remaining slice of Redlands’ iconic industry. This environment is an important extension of the classroom. It provides beautiful surroundings, learning opportunities, and physical development for students and fosters respect and appreciation of the natural world.

MIR is embarking on a large-scale program to enhance the safety, functionality, and beauty of the campus. MIR contracted with a school safety consultant to complete a Hazard and Vulnerability Assessment of our campus. Following the assessment, MIR created a Facilities Master Plan to implement the assessment's recommendations while maintaining the unique character of our campus.
 

The Learning Environments

MIR classrooms are peaceful and joyful and designed to meet the developmental needs of each child at every stage. 

Montessori recognizes three entities responsible for teaching and learning in a school:

• The teacher
• The student
• The learning environment (sometimes referred to as “the third teacher”)

Maria Montessori observed that “the child can only develop fully by means of experience in his environment” and stressed the need for classrooms to be “prepared environments” for students.

The classrooms support students’ development in three areas:

• Executive function
• Linguistic and cultural fluency
• Social fluency and emotional flexibility

Learn more about Montessori environments from AMI.

The Groves

MIR is located in Redlands’ Mission District (near the Redlands Asistencia), on the original homelands of the Cahuilla and the Yuhaaviatam clan of the Maara’yam (or Serrano) people.

The current 12-acre site was established as a citrus and apricot ranch in 1913 by Lee and Ida Yount. The Dangermond family later purchased the ranch, and the groves largely comprised white grapefruit trees. The Dangermonds rented the land to MIR until 2014, when MIR purchased it.

Harvesting the grapefruits occurs when there is market demand. Visitors are welcome to pick the grapefruits outside of the school’s fence line.

As the grapefruit trees near the end of their lifespan, MIR is replacing ailing trees with orange trees to do our part to maintain Redlands’ citrus heritage while benefiting from a more viable citrus crop.