School Board

After graduating from St. Olaf in 2008 with a degree in Art and Education, Sarah was thrilled to find work in Northfield area schools. She spent the first decade of her career as a Middle School Advisor and Art Teacher at Arcadia Charter School (with a bit of quality time spent teaching K-8 Art at the Cannon River Stem School). At Arcadia, Sarah had many great students, friends, and mentors and fell in love with Project Based Learning. In 2016, she returned to school to earn her MA in Special Education and shortly after (2018) joined the Avalon staff. Sarah has been a full-time Special Education Teacher ever since. Sarah is passionate about reading and writing instruction and is currently pursuing her Orton Gillingham Certification
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Sarah loves art, words (spoken and written), fractions, dogs and cats equally, green olives, long walks, and frequent trips to DQ.

Kevin Ward is an advisor at Avalon School. He joined Avalon in 2002 and feels lucky to be here. A graduate of Oberlin College with a BA in English, Kevin has also attended Northwestern University (MS in Secondary English Instruction) and University of Wisconsin-Madison (MA in English Literature). He lives in the Hamline Midway neighborhood of St. Paul with his wife Jess and two kids Murray and Olive. Kevin likes reading and working with students, so the whole thing is a pretty good deal for him.

...coming!

Sam is an Avalon alumn that has worked as a high school advisor and World Language Teacher since 2023. After studying German at Hamline University, she got her teaching license in Second Languages and Cultures from the University of Minnesota. She started teaching in Minneapolis Public Schools, moved to St. Paul Public Schools, and finally landed at Avalon. She is so happy to be back and teaching German and English Language Learners! Outside of Avalon, she loves hanging with her dog and parents, working on her house, and going to trivia nights with friends.

As an Avalon parent for the past year and a half, I have been very impressed by the commitment, education, communications, and managing of the COVID crisis by the school. I would like to learn more about the school and its administrative model, and contribute to the community by bringing my experience and perspective to the board. I have expertise in project management, having worked in the role professionally for 15 years; I have significant experience managing financials professionally; and I have experience reviewing contracts and internal documents and policies for accuracy. I have been an involved and volunteering parent at multiple Montessori/project based schools; having seen the various ways that these models are interpreted, I will bring my unique perspective to the board based on these past experiences. I have 25 years of experience in project and financial management. I currently work as a financial manager for The Hartford, with responsibility for all department finances, license agreements, and vendor contracts.

Over the past twenty years, Tamara's career has been dedicated to social justice, elevating others, and creating equity for all. Her work in Human Resources, progressive politics, and the labor movement encompasses everything from creating best practices for workplaces through policies and procedures using employee engagement metrics to budget analysis to ensure competitiveness in the market.

She lives in southeast Minneapolis with her family, and is the parent of four wonderful children, all attending Avalon School, and who are thriving in Avalon's unique approach to student-centered learning.

Ben is a special education teacher at Avalon School.  He started working at Avalon as an Education Assistant while completing his Masters in Teaching at Hamline University and hasn't gone anywhere since.  Ben is dual licensed in special education and language arts and loves teaching reading, writing, and research skills through the project-based-learning process.

Dawn is one of three women partners of a small architecture firm, InSite Architects, which specializes in affordable and senior housing, and is located in St Paul.  With 35 years experience as an architect, Dawn has become experienced in design, budgets, staffing, construction, market analysis, graphic design, and communications.

Dawn served on the Avalon School Board as a Board Member and Board Chair from August 2016 – June 2020. She has served as a Board Member for Trinity Housing Corporation serving low income and mentally challenged residents, a Board Member for the Holy Trinity Lutheran Church Council, the co-chair of the St Anthony Park Elementary School Site Council, secretary of the American Institute of Architects Minneapolis Chapter, President of Chapter CW of P.E.O., a women’s philanthropic education organization, and Secretary of the Minneapolis Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. Dawn attended college at Cottey College in Missouri for an Associate of Arts Liberal Arts degree, and at Kent State in Ohio, Kansas State, and the University of Missouri in Kansas City for a Bachelor’s of Architecture Degree.

I have had a variety of jobs in my life, and have spent the last 20 years working in IT, starting at a county in northern Arizona, and working in e-commerce, payment software, defense and consulting since.  I started as a temp answering phones for the help desk and have done a variety of roles since.  I enjoy simplifying the complex and finding efficiencies much more than I enjoy computers themselves.  I enjoy mentoring and learning, and sharing my experience.

Prior to IT, I worked for the Minneapolis Public Library, in group homes for REM Minnesota, and various and sundry other short term gigs, which gave me a lot of interesting experiences and the opportunity to meet all kinds of people.