This is my fourth year at Trailside Middle School, I'm excited to be a part of the Trailside Pack and I'm looking forward to meeting our upcoming 6th grade students and helping them orient to Middle School. I'll be co-teaching in Language Arts, and working with smaller groups of students aswell. This year I am excited to have completed my Masters in Special Education at George Mason University, graduating with honors. I enjoyed my classes and plan to bring the strategies I learned during that time to help my students. I have also completed my 1000 hours field work to make me elligible to take the Board Certification for Assistant Behavior Analyst, I hope to achieve a pass in that this year. 

I have over 13 years working in the Special Needs field, 9 were in residential treatment centers where I had the opportunity to partner with my own pack of Certified Assistance Dogs. I have had the pleasure of working with 5 Certified Assistance Dogs, three of these were my own. We worked on goals related to improvement of social skills, organization, attention and building self esteem. With my two Golden Retriever partners, Willson and Parker, I currently provide Animal Assisted Workshops as part of the Summitt Dog Assistance dog organization for THE FORT under the Ryan Bartel Foundation in Loudoun County. 

I've lived in the U.S.A for 25 years, and although I've tried I still can't speak with an American accent. I am passionate about reading, books, language and communication. I am driven by student needs and I strive to find strategies that work best for each of my students so that they can reach their potential and be successful. I encourage students to use their natural strengths and talents while setting clear and consistent expectations in the clsssroom with emphasis on positive social skills and having fun.

This summer I set myself two new challenges, I always need a new goal to work towards! Firstly, I took swimming lessons to learn how to do Front Crawl and Backstroke and improve my Breaststroke technique. I like to try and swim as many days as possible a week. Secondly, I took dance lessons to learn how to dance more elegantly while dancing in competition with Parker. Yes thats right! I dance with my dogs! Canine Freestyle dancing is a sport where I enjoy using all my favorite hobbies in one; music, movement and training dogs. Other things I like to do are: exercise, weight training and Pilates, singing, listening to music, crafts, painting and reading.

I generally love the outdoors, it can't get better for me than walking my dogs early morning with frost on the ground and the sun rising. Sitting on the tractor to cut my nearly 4 acres of grass is also a favorite outdoor activity.

I am married to a wonderful British guy named Bob, it will be 40 years this year. I don't have children except the two furry ones and all the critters who come into my yard, bunnies, foxes, deer, squirrels and peacocks, but I do have one sibling who lives in NY state and is married to a first generation Italian American, his parents came in to the U.S.A. through Ellis Island. I have 4 nieces and nephews and 9 great nieces and nephews, some British, some American. I love time with my American family, we have a hilarious time playing games together, like Pictionary, Monopoly, Balderdash and Gestures.

Every year my goal is to build a reciprocal relationship with the parents of my students so that we can work as a team together to give students the best school experience.