As a young girl, I grew familiar with the formal school setting shadowing my dad, a now retired Spanish teacher, as he spent time in his classroom after school hours. I loved playing "teacher" and modeling Read-A-Louds to the empty desks and gradually moved up in competency to grade his papers.

While attending the University of California, San Diego, I was hired on as a tutor/mentor for an academic outreach program where I helped lower socioeconomic students in different literacy centers. I found great fulfillment in knowing I could teach students their sound to letter correspondences, how to blend sounds into words, and to later read those words to understand complete sentences. After obtaining my B.A. in Communications, I substitute taught for San Diego City Unified School District and was later hired on as a associate teacher in a Senior Kindergarten class at an exclusive private school. During this time, I decided to obtain my teaching license and Master's in Education and was hired in the public school system where I live now, Las Vegas, Nevada. I taught 1st, 3rd, and 5th grades while balancing motherhood and my career. Having a spouse who works long hours, and a daughter who plays club soccer for a traveling team, this became quite rigorous. I decided to put my career on hold so that I could become a full-time mom, and invest in our middle school aged daughter's life. Now, she is driving herself to and from school, as well as soccer practices, so I am working back in the educational field.

My mission as an educator is to provide a nurturing, warm learning environment that fosters empathy, respect, and an appetite for learning in all students. Instruction will be based on developmental approaches of higher order thinking, will be adapted to fit each student's needs, and will function to support student growth as effective citizens in their community and in a pluralistic nation.