Know Your Pelicans

Building a happy classroom community in which we can laugh, share our struggles, and enjoy each other’s successes is paramount.

My favorite thing about Packer is our diversity. People sense it when they enter the building. We encourage and respect each other for our differences as well as our similarities.

One of my favorite things to do at Packer is learn about the lives of all of our students. I love talking to them about things that are not related to school. We don't talk politics; we talk about everything else—and that fills me with energy.

I hope to teach students persistence, inventiveness, skepticism, that failures are part of the process, how to answer their own questions, learn from mistakes, and work together.

My students never cease to amaze me — the way they look at a problem or find a solution in a way that I could never have anticipated. Their creativity drives me.

I hope my students come to appreciate the value of learning in a caring, supportive, and mutually challenging community.

On a regular basis I learn about the power of forgiveness from the students. Children can be deeply disappointed with someone but they can also be resilient and quickly remember why they love that person.

We have some of the most dynamic, well-rounded students in the entire city, and I hope they continue creating, challenging others and being a strong voice for the issues they support in the broader world.