Staffing Updates
As we head into the summer, we wanted to share some news about staffing for next year and welcome new faculty to our community.
David Devory and Kasha Viets-Wood will not be returning to their roles this upcoming year. We wish them the best of luck and thank them for all of their hard work at Peabody.
We have hired
Nicole Dreyfus
as our new Grade 3 teacher. Nicole graduated from Bard College with a B.A. in Literature and Creative Writing; in 2004, she earned her Master's of Science in Education from Bank Street College of Education in New York City. Between 2013 and 2014, Nicole was awarded a full scholarship to be a science fellow at Bank Street's Kerlin Institute, where she studied genetics, ecology, pathology and best practices in science instruction. Over the past seventeen years, Nicole has taught children between the ages of 3 and 16 in various school settings across the United States, as well as in Costa Rica and Colombia. She holds a teaching license for grades PreK-6 in the state of Virginia. Nicole has been the recipient of several grants and awards, including a summer travel grant to study Yoga and Mediation in India, a grant to study filmmaking in Turkey, a scholarship to participate in a summer-long puppetry apprenticeship in Vermont, and a grant to create and exhibit poetry and paintings in the Southwestern United States. She has been an exhibiting artist in several galleries in New York City and the Hudson River Valley and has written several novels and picture books for children. Nicole loves learning new things and is thrilled to be a member of the Peabody community, working with her all-time favorite grade!
Hope Sikora
will be joining us as our new Middle School Math teacher. Hope graduated from the University of Virginia with both her Masters in Teaching in Secondary Mathematics Education and her B.A. in Math with a minor in Religious Studies. She has worked with students in Algebra I, II, Geometry and Pre-Calculus. Hope loves middle school math, because it encourages problem solving and helps us understand the world. In her free time, Hope enjoys cooking, exercising, and cheering on the Hoos!
Lydia Funk
will be joining our staff as a Teaching Assistant.
A Peabody alumna (‘11), Lydia graduated from The College of William & Mary with a B.A. in French and Francophone Studies and a minor in Middle Eastern Studies. Committed to cross-cultural communication, she studied in both Montpellier, France, and Brussels, Belgium while in school. After graduating, she served as a group leader on an exchange program for Iraqi undergraduates in Detroit. She recently returned from a year teaching English in a French high school. In her free time, Ms. Funk enjoys reading, gardening, restoring antique furniture, and planning her next travel adventure.
Additionally, we have restructured the World Language Department to create a K-5 and 6-8 grade band. Severine Fremy and Mary Patricia Moynihan will be teaching in Grades K-5. Maryline Meyer and our new hire,
Emory (Emmie) Wright
will be teaching Middle School.
Emmie Wright holds a BA in Spanish, with a minor in Anthropology, from Washington and Lee University. She spent her junior year in Sevilla, Spain and as soon as she finished college she returned, this time to walk the Camino de Santiago, a 500 mile pilgrimage across Northern Spain.She earned her M.A in Spanish from the Middlebury Language School, finishing her last summer in Guadalajara, Mexico.She spent a number of years teaching both middle and upper school Spanish in Charleston, SC, New York City, where she led student trips to Spain, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, and Peru. She then took time off from teaching to stay home with her kids Stella (rising Grade 2) and Jack (rising kindergartener).
In the fall of 2019, she returned to the Spanish classroom at Tandem Friends School, where she taught Middle School Spanish.
In her free time, she loves to travel with her family, garden, read and run.
We look forward to working with these amazing educators!
