FACULTY & STAFF

My “career” as a teacher started in my grandmother’s classroom at the age of 5. I was responsible for sorting out puzzle boxes. This early keen interest in puzzles, interplay of sounds and meanings, and reading dry British humor brought me to study Linguistics, and later on to a news station. After years of working as a news host, I  thought that it would be more interesting to discuss material, rather than narrate it. Thus, I  went back to the field of education.  I  have a Bachelor of Science in Linguistics, later earned my  Master’s degree in Education, and  I keep on learning. My academic interests include cognitive development, achievement gaps, language acquisition, bi-lingual  education  and social  influences on development. I  most recently lived and worked in Detroit as a reading specialist and literature teacher. I  believe in imparting knowledge about our present world, art , literature and science to our students in creative and engaging forms. My family is still rather new to Colorado, and we enjoy every mountain of it. Aside from cross country skiing, I am practicing my ice skating skills, ballet pas, filling in my passport pages with stamps from countries less traveled and learning foreign languages. Sometimes I dream of being a Rockstar, but in reality, I like spending my time gardening and cross stitching. I am always eager to answer any questions, except for Sundays at 7pm, as Christopher, myself and our shiba inu puppy Marzipan are watching The Simpsons.

 After moving to Denver in 2017, I decided to give a turn to my professional path, and started studying Early Childhood Education. After getting my Early childhood entry certificate, I worked at a Child Development Center where I loved working with 3- and 4-years old children, and discovered that I wanted to teach, so it motivated me, and I recently got my teacher certificate. I started studying French in middle school, but did not give it too much importance at the time, as I did not really think that I would use it someday and my priority was to learn English! But then I met my husband, moved to Paris, enrolled in The Sorbonne University to study French language and civilization and ended up spending 12 years in that beautiful country! France is the place where my 3 boys were born, and my husband sometimes jokes that I am more French than him… whatever that means! In my spare time, I love spending time with my family and traveling the world (our goal now is to visit as many states as we can while we are in the US!) I am also passionate about baking delicious French pastries and cooking new flavors. 

Jimm is originally from the south side of Chicago where he lived, worked and attended school through his college days and tenure on the Chicago Fire Department. He left the Chicagoland area to pursue graduate school in Urbana-Champaign where he acquired a Masters Degree and the travel bug. Since then, he has taught and lived in 14 countries while visiting over 150 countries. He first arrived in Denver to teach middle-school math for DPS. He has split the past eight years between Denver, the Middle-East, and East Africa - mostly teaching, but also playing and organizing his favorite sport: underwater hockey!