Melanie has been a classroom lead teacher for 37 years. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Diversified Education, and her California, Preschool-8th, Multiple Subject Teaching Credential, from Mount Saint Mary’s College, in Los Angeles. She has taught in California private schools in the cities of Inglewood, Long Beach, Ojai, and Santa Barbara, and her primary focus as an educator has been in Kindergarten through second grades, but 30 years has been in Kindergarten.
After 23 years of teaching, Melanie decided to have a new adventure and moved to Phoenix, Arizona, where she taught Kindergarten in an intercity public school. She lived and taught in the beautiful Arizona desert in a poverty-stricken area. Many of the families were refugees from various countries. Despite her love for this culture and unforeseen circumstances, Melanie moved back to Santa Barbara and was hired by Marymount to be the Kindergarten Lead Teacher, of which she served for 13 years.
In 2020, Melanie decided to retire from teaching. But due to her love of the children and Marymount and missing the classroom experience, her retirement lasted only three months. She was then rehired to be a floating substitute teacher in grades JK-4. At the end of the 2020-2021 school year, Melanie was offered the position of Junior Kindergarten Associate teacher, which she readily accepted.
Melanie believes in educating the whole child, physically, intellectually, socially, and emotionally. Her goal is to bring her wealth of experience and knowledge to the JK classroom and to serve the Riviera Ridge community to the best of her ability.