Staff

Camille Taylor (Ms. Camille)
Director/Education Specialist - Fifth/Sixth Grades

I was raised in Los Gatos, California, and studied English Literature at UCLA, after which I moved to the mountains for balance and true quality of life. My early professional life focused on law, an experience that honed my abilities to appreciate and work well within the regulatory and administrative arena of education. I currently serve as Director and Education Specialist at Creekside Cooperative, and am a parent of two Creekside students. These various roles give me a close connection with our faculty, families and students, and provide insights within a variety of stakeholder perspectives.

Successful organizations thrive with positive team leadership. I see my administrative role as that of a facilitator, making connections, coordinating active involvement of our cooperative group, fostering positive and open communication, maintaining responsible record keeping and finances, and supporting professional and academic excellence. I believe with all my heart that it is incumbent upon educators to model an adventuresome love of learning in order to inspire curiosity, motivation and enthusiasm. This modeling begins with imaginative and positive leadership.

In the classroom, I strive to create an experience that is meaningful and relevant to students' lives to prepare them for their next educational adventure while inspiring an ongoing zeal for discovery. As a team, the students and I find ways to incorporate citizenship and global awareness, organizational skills, interdisciplinary activities and a strong sense of teamwork and responsibility into all areas of study. Diversity of culture, learning styles, interests, experiences and skills is celebrated my classroom as students are provided individualized levels of scaffolding in order to realize and celebrate success. I subscribe to theme-based, multi-disciplinary, and experiential curriculum choices, integrating direct instruction, individual and collaborative learning activities, peer mentoring, opportunities to develop and apply technology skills, assessments through problem solving, writing, quizzes, oral presentations and projects of an interdisciplinary nature, promoting the cognitive development of intrinsic motivation toward excellence.

Gillian Willow (Ms. Gillian)
Education Specialist - Third/Fourth Grades

I was born in London, England, and grew up in Pasadena, California. I earned a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology at the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1992 and a Masters in Elementary Education and CLAD Multiple Subject Credential from San Francisco State University. While attending SFSU, I gained valuable experience teaching a diverse population of students at a small, private K-8 school, The Hilldale School, where the faculty was encouraged to creatively facilitate and guide with hands-on personalized lessons reflecting each student's learning styles and abilities. After three years of teaching second and third grades, I moved to Lake Tahoe.

I have taught with Creekside for since 2001, teaching Kindergarten, Third, Fourth and Fifth Grades. I recognize the importance of developing positive attitudes to encourage and inspire students to expect and reach their highest potentials. While teaching to the California Standards, incorporating Positive Discipline, Tribes, the Multiple Intelligences and other creative curriculum, a positive and nurturing classroom environment is built through good rapport, mutual respect, attentive listening, classroom agreements, activities and trust. My teaching style and strategies incorporate all aspects of inquiry, allowing students to develop and apply their skills across the curriculum through researching, decision-making, inference, problem solving, and reflective, critical and creative thinking. Theme units integrate the curriculum, giving students the opportunity to recognize the connections that science, history, the arts, technology, mathematics and language have on each other. I constantly observe, modify and assess through conferences, quizzes, portfolios, posters, written and oral reports, discussions, group projects, stories and workbook study. The structure of my classroom varies throughout the day between cooperative group work, whole class work and direct instruction. The students and I share knowledge, talents and interests in the classroom, making learning more exciting, forming connections among the students, myself and the subject being studied.

Melinda Adams (Ms. Mindy)
Education Specialist - First/Second Grades

I have lived at Lake Tahoe since 1987. I moved to the area for the beauty, healthy lifestyle, and recreation possibilities. I enjoy the outdoors and sports such as water and snow skiing, cross country skiing, climbing, hiking, and mountain biking. I attended the University of Nevada, Reno earning my Bachelor of Science degree in Elementary Education in 1996 and my Masters of Education in Elementary Education in 2003. I have been teaching since 1998. I have taught kindergarten through second grades, many times with combination classes. I have worked for a private school, in traditional public schools, charter schools and independent study programs. Teaching is my passion.

I believe in a developmental approach to education and that learning should be a combination of student-centered and teacher led activities. Hands-on experiences are vital to learning and I utilize our local environment to teach some science and social studies concepts. My phonics instruction incorporates the methodology of The Four Blocks and Words Their Way models with our language arts curriculum. I use an individualized approach to reading instruction through Bob Books and other leveled phonics readers of interest to my students. For math instruction, I combine Houghton-Mifflin's Math Steps with Math Their Way activities. My desire is to provide a variety of different experiences with math and numbers from games, to counting real money, to the book. I am always looking for and trying new things with the goal of inspiring a life-long love of learning in each student, seeking to meet them at their level and take them as far as they can go.

Farah Martin-Steagall (Ms. Farah)
Education Specialist - First/Second Grades

I am a native New Yorker (born and raised) where I graduated from Long Island University with a Bachelors Degree in Art Therapy. I worked with the geriatric population as an art therapist for 2 years. Coming from a family of teachers, I realized my real passion was to teach. I went on to obtain a Master in Education from the University of Phoenix. After 8 wonderful years of teaching in the public school system I found a great match teaching at Creekside.

I thoroughly enjoy teaching. It is a wonderful experience to be able to incorporate my creative nature into my teaching style. I enjoy differentiating my lessons to meet the needs of all of my students. My students learn the state curriculum through a variety of ways including hands on experiences such as art, music, dance and theater. My teaching philosophy is to "Make Learning Fun"!

I believe that working as a team produces the best educational environment for everyone. Working as a team with the parents further enhances the learning experience for the students. Included in my Creekside participation, I also run the student store and the drama club called "The Theater Bug".

I look forward to many wonderful years as part of the Creekside family.

Theresa Anderson (Ms. Theresa)
Education Specialist - Kindergarten

I graduated from the University of California at Irvine and received my teaching credential from the California State University at Long Beach. My husband and I moved to Tahoe in 1991 where I was quickly diverted from the classroom to become the assistant manager at the Alpine Meadows ski school. I soon became busy with my three children and opened my own daycare/preschool which I ran for six years.

I have been very involved in education as a substitute teacher as well as teaching GATE classes, art, religious education, and alpine and cross country skiing. I am very excited to be a part of the Creekside community and the wonderful world of kindergarten.

Monica Caldari (Señora Monica)
Spanish Instructor

I was born in Italy to parents of Italian and Puerto Rican descent. Before the age of three, my family moved to Puerto Rico and by the time I was in Kindergarten we were living in Connecticut. I graduated from the University of Connecticut with a Bachelor of Arts in Latin American Studies and received a Master's in Education from Framingham State College. Approximately 15 years of my life have been spent teaching English, Spanish, and Social Studies at every grade level. I have taught in private schools, inner city public schools, in Puerto Rico, Connecticut, Northern California, and now in beautiful Lake Tahoe.

I have traveled extensively throughout the United States, Latin America, and Europe. Because of my multicultural background and extensive travel, the concept of diversity has played a critical role in my teaching career. It is an aspect within education that must be addressed in order to create a more compassionate, respectful and truly educated society.

Genuine learning emerges when the material being presented is relevant and interesting; something that inspires students to create new paths towards intellectual development. By making students participants rather than observers, they assume a sense of belonging, acceptance and ownership. This goal is achieved when I see students smiling; hands raised and ready to share thoughts, ideas, and opinions.

Educational philosophies come and go like the ebb and flow of the tide. As an educator, I must sift through the debris and decipher students' needs. In the process, I uncover my own objectives to seek out new methods and styles of teaching and learning. For this reason, I look forward to learning from colleagues and students each and every day. Teaching is at once rewarding and inspiring: a continual search for further knowledge, information, and ultimately wisdom. It is an honor to be part of such a significant profession.

Lynn Bohrnstedt-Cleeland (Ms. Lynn)
Business Manager

I was born and raised in Wisconsin. I am married and have four wonderful children. I attended the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh and received my B.S. in Journalism with an emphasis in Advertising/PR. In addition to my Journalism credits, I took several early education/elementary education courses.

After graduating, I moved to Jackson, Wyoming where I served as the Assistant Manager of the Jackson Hole Kinderschule for two years, and then at St. John's Hospital Daycare and Preschool. I was also the Office Manager of The Mangy Moose Restaurant and Emporium for five years. In 2001, we decided to move further west and landed in Mammoth Lakes, California. We spent one year in Mammoth and decided Lake Tahoe was our next destination. I began working as a bookkeeper at Sunnyside Resort in 2004 and took on the duties of payroll in 2005.

I have been involved in the many phases of Creekside since 2003. I have seen it grow and evolve and couldn't be more proud to now be working as its Office Manager. I look forward to the future of Creekside Cooperative Charter School and working with the wonderful staff, parents and students.