Emily Kate Avakian

Literary Genres

Dr. Avakian earned her Bachelor’s degree at the University of Montana where she focused on Native American Studies and Sociology. As an undergraduate student, Ms. Avakian focused her research on diversity issues within higher education. From there, she earned her Master’s in Student Affairs Practice in Higher Education from the University of Virginia. She earned her Doctorate at Liberty University in Education Administration: Educational Leadership.

Dr. Avakian is a native of Charlottesville and a graduate of Renaissance School and aims to utilize her education to serve her Native American community. Outside of work and school, Emily serves on the board of directors for the ALMA-nominated Farhang School in Iran, a school that provides education to Afghan refugees living in Iran.

In her spare time, Dr. Avakian enjoys writing and has published numerous articles and poems in literary journals and magazines. In the summer of 2022, Emily’s most recent creative endeavor, A Secret Ingredient, was produced in Baltimore through Strand Theater Company and APAC. The play highlighted issues of immigration and identity among Armenian youth.

Jeffrey Prado

Mathematics

Mr. Prado’s experience speaks to his belief in the power of experiential education and of building an intentional community of lifelong learners. Mr. Prado was born in New Orleans, LA and, from an early age, was inspired by nature and the outdoors. He went on to double major in geology and environmental studies at Sewanee: The University of the South on the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee, where he graduated with honors.

Following college, his path led him to travel around the West rock climbing, exploring cultural resources, and working in outdoor education. Mr. Prado quickly found his way to teaching, where he found a reinvigorated passion for connecting topics to the natural world. Mr. Prado notes, “In my math classes, I have always strived to provide opportunities for hands-on learning while also teaching the underlying language of mathematics.” Mr. Prado worked in several independent high schools teaching Algebra II, geometry, precalculus, and math III to students of varying academic backgrounds and experiences. Mr. Prado is excited to bring real-world connections and experiential learning into the math classroom at the Renaissance School!

While teaching, Mr. Prado also served as a lead faculty member in outdoor trips and excursions. These Mountain Classroom trips took him across the country exploring public land, studying geology and cultural resources, and teaching how to live in an intentional community. From speculating about natural arch formation in Arches National Park to canoeing the border of Mexico and the United States in Big Bend National Park with students, Mr. Prado lives and breathes experiential education.

Outside of the classroom, Mr. Prado enjoys trail running on the Rivanna Trail, reading about natural history, and spending time in nature. If you want Mr. Prado to go on a tangent in class just mention public lands, geology, or anything relating to woodworking or trees. He is excited to be joining the intellectual community at Renaissance School and is looking forward to connecting with this new group of students.

Coach Hannah Deal

Triathalon

Coach Hannah Deal is a Charlottesville native who spent her formative years navigating the chaos of being the youngest of four siblings, while contending with the constant tug-of-war between her love for music and passion for sports. She began summer swim team at the age of four and continued to compete casually through high school.

After trying several other sports throughout her childhood, Coach Deal found her calling in volleyball and began to play competitively year-round. She spent several years as a head coach at Sutherland Middle School, during which she mentored young athletes and watched them blossom into caring teammates and formidable competitors. Faced with her own challenging decision between pursuing a varsity volleyball career or dedicating herself to a violin performance degree, Coach Deal chose a third course of action and majored in Business Management at James Madison University, leaving herself time to discover new hobbies. In 2016, Coach Deal’s brother introduced her to the world of triathlon and she dove headfirst into the sport, completing her first triathlon just one month later and instantly falling in love with it. Her dedication led her to take on the role of Vice President at JMU’s Triathlon Club.

Somewhere north of ten triathlons later and with more on the calendar, Coach Deal dedicates an average of 9-10 hours per week to rigorous training, guided by a personal coach. Immersed in the world of triathlons and with a professional triathlete for a brother, she stays well-informed about the latest developments in the sport. She loves to test her limits and continually searches for ways to improve and get stronger, all while having a blast! Coach Deal’s training philosophy mirrors her coaching approach—she firmly believes that fun is the essential foundation of any successful training plan. Furthermore, she places paramount importance on maintaining one’s well-being, even if it means adjusting a workout or taking an unwanted rest day. Above all, Hannah recognizes the significance of setting ambitious yet personalized goals, respecting each athlete’s unique journey and never imposing a one-size-fits-all approach.

Alongside coaching, Coach Deal works full-time at the Community Investment Collaborative, a local nonprofit that empowers under-resourced small businesses and entrepreneurs. Beyond her athletic pursuits, she finds solace and happiness in the kitchen, enjoys playing violin on the downtown mall, and frequently indulges in her love for reading fantasy and listening to neuroscience podcasts.

Dr. Carolyn Fay

French

Dr. Carolyn Fay is a writer and a teacher with a passion for language and literature. After earning a B.A. in French with a minor in English from Swarthmore College, she completed an M.A. and Ph.D. in French at the University of Virginia and went on to teach at the University of Virginia, Franklin & Marshall College, and Penn State Altoona. Some of her favorite courses to teach were “Dreaming the Monster in Nineteenth-century French Literature,” “He Said, She Said: Gender and Writing in Modern French Literature,” and “The French Novel on Film.”

But, as in many novels, there came a plot twist: when the opportunity arose, Dr. Fay left academia to move to the San Francisco Bay Area with her family. There, she began homeschooling her daughter and started building a new career as a freelance writer for children. Her publications include articles and stories in magazines such as Highlights, Muse, Dig, and Calliope. Dr. Fay continued to teach French to small groups, mainly in the homeschooling communities of the Bay Area, Brighton U.K., and lately Charlottesville.

Dr. Fay loves stories of all kinds, be they beefy French novels, films, or kid lit. Her current works-in-progress include a Middle-Grade contemporary fantasy, several picture book manuscripts, and literary flash fiction. Her most recent stories have appeared in Orca and Dime Show Review. In her spare time, Dr. Fay enjoys walking, traveling, and learning other languages. She is currently studying Portuguese and learned just enough to get into a tiny bit of trouble on a recent trip to Lisbon. Dr. Fay is excited to share her love of French with the Renaissance community.

Stephen Haske

Facilities & It

Stephen Haske is an artist, illustrator, designer, and handyman. He was born and raised in Southern California and studied photography at California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, where he earned his B.A. in 2000. He went on to earn his Master’s of Fine Arts in Illustration at the Savannah College of Art and Design then returned to Southern California and began a career as a Designer and Art Director at a leading maker of beach cruisers and city bicycles. After seven years in the bicycle field, Mr. Haske decided to hang up his wheels, move to Charlottesville, and pursue his passion for illustration, fine art, and education full-time.

Mr. Haske is an exhibiting artist at McGuffey Art Center and the Outreach Coordinator of Second Street Gallery. Mr. Haske’s illustrations and designs have been featured locally and nationally for such clients as WNRN, Pink Magazine, Charleston Magazine, Nest, The Guardian and others. Mr. Haske has also designed posters for artists and events such as Lockin, Light House Studio Youth Film Festival, Steve Miller, Lake Street Dive, Béla Fleck & Abigail Washburn, The Can-Do Attitude and Richelle Claiborne. He has exhibited his fine art and doodles online and through Charlottesville galleries such as Second Street Gallery and New City Arts.

Mr. Haske loves to run, hike, ride and explore Charlottesville and the surrounding area with his family.

Joaquin Litzenberger

Spanish and Chess Coach

Joaquin Litzenberger was born in Mexico and was raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and in Charlottesville, Virginia. Mr. Litzenberger completed his undergraduate degree in Philosophy and Spanish at the University of Virginia and recently received an M.A. in Hispanic Languages and Literature from the University of Pittsburgh. Mr. Litzenberger has a lifelong passion for teaching Spanish, particularly in the United States, which has a growing bilingual population. His favorite author is Jorges Luis Borges, which he continues to study through original manuscripts. He is particularly drawn to Borges’s philosophical experiments in ‘Kafka y sus precursores’.

Joaquin Litzenberger learned how to play chess when he was 8 years old from family members at home. At age 9, he began competing in Buenos Aires’s scholastic chess cycle on board 1 for his school, ‘Colegio Argentino Arabe’, where he played alongside Argentina’s top youth chess talent and once met former Chess World Champion Anatoly Karpov. Mr. Litzenberger is an accomplished ‘Class B’ tournament player, with a current U.S. chess federation rating of 1705 (August 2023). Last year, he won the under U1600 section of the Coastal Virginia Open in Norfolk, Va in outright first place with a perfect score of 5/5. More recently, he drew 3 games and won 2 games for a 3.5/5 score in the U1800 section of North Carolina’s largest open chess tournament in history in Charlotte, the NC Classic. So far in 2023, he has played in regional tournaments in the Washington D.C. and Charlotte, NC area and crossed the 1700 elo mark. Mr. Litzenberger favors a strategic style of play and his specialty is the final phase of the game -the endgame-, which he considers the ultimate basis of chess understanding. Karpov continues to be one of his favorite players. He looks forward to competing in Virginia’s Championship Section Tournament this fall and organizing chess tournaments in Renaissance School.

Outside of the classroom, Mr. Litzenberger enjoys spending time with his family, reading philosophy, running and playing guitar and chess. He has enjoyed moving back to Charlottesville where he grew up to share his experiences and meet the next generation of Spanish speakers in the United States.

Sally Duncan

History

Sally Duncan is originally from Michigan, growing up only 30 miles from where her ancestors settled on Potawatomi land. With an ancestral lineage that stretches back to the Mayflower, Jamestown, and William Penn, she continually grapples with the way land, history, and identity are intertwined.

Her love of history inspired a move to Virginia in 2013, and after homeschooling her 5 kids for 15 years, she returned to college, earning her B.A. in American Studies from the University of Virginia in 2020, studying race and the cultural landscape. She earned her M.A. in American Religions in 2023, where her research focused on the intersection of race, religion, and popular culture. She was both a Skinner Scholar and a member of the Raven Society.

Her first experience with civic engagement was being a board member of the Paw Paw District Library in Michigan, and currently she is a city council-appointed member of the Historic Resources Committee. She has written and presented on the history of Charlottesville neighborhood associations, and in 2019 she spent the summer doing archival research for the Preservers of the Daughters of Zion Cemetery.

Ms. Duncan lives in Earlysville and in her spare time she enjoys cooking, catching up on tv shows, and cheering on her three high schoolers from the sidelines.

Jay Pun

Music

Jay Pun is a Charlottesville native who returned to the area in 2003 after graduating from Berklee College of Music (B.M. in Professional Music) in Boston. Jay’s primary instrument is guitar & phin (a native 3-string instrument of Thailand) and he regularly performs with violinist Morwenna Lasko as the duo “Morwenna Lasko & Jay Pun.” The duo has shared shows with a variety of great musicians including Bela Fleck & The Flecktones, Julian Lage, Vusi Mahlasela, Dave Matthews Band, The Avett Brothers, Ralph Stanley, and have also played at great venues and festivals such as The Kennedy Center, FloydFest, The Festy, Rockflies radio broadcast (Milan, Italy), Festival delle Colline, Musicastrada, and many others.

In 2014, Mr. Pun composed and scored original music with Morwenna for a film funded by NASA called “The Birth of a Star and Her Entourage” which is shown in planetariums across the world. In 2015 Mr. Pun and Morwenna also released their highly anticipated CD, “The Hollow” internationally, coupled with a tour all over Italy, including Charlottesville’s sister city, Poggio a Caiano.

Mr. Pun co-founded Fingerdance Studio with Morwenna, where they teach guitar, violin, viola, bass, songwriting, and music theory. Mr. Pun loves teaching music theory and performance at Renaissance School. In his other world, he helps run three restaurants with his family, Thai Cuisine & Noodle House, CHIMM, and CHIMM St. inside Dairy Market. He also serves on the board of the Eko Ise Music Program Advisory Board at The Jefferson School African American Heritage Center and the Charlottesville Albemarle Convention & Visitors Bureau. His latest community contribution is presenting Virginia’s annual “VeryAsian VA” Celebration which showcases Asian American culture here in central Virginia.

Most recently Mr. Pun completed his first children’s book “Som Tum & Sticky Rice” about the popular Thai dish, which will be released later this year.

Mr. Pun loves spending time with his beautiful wife, two daughters, and their King Charles Spaniel, Romeo.

Bethany Farris

Dean Of Academics
Business, Physics, and Mathematics

Bethany Joy Farris, CFA, obtained her Bachelor of Science in Applied and Computational Mathematical Sciences with an Emphasis in Economics with College Honors, and a Minor in Spanish, from the University of Washington in 2000. She is a Seattle native and enjoyed living and working in the UK, Spain, New Zealand, and Peru, as well as around the US, before moving to Charlottesville in 2010. Ms. Farris was a NASA researcher before serving global institutional investors and corporations with Mercer Investment Consulting and Moss Adams Advisory Services. This experience led to the development of the unique RS Business program, which has included invitations to pitch at the Darden School iLab and attend the annual CFA Conference, the first-ever high school to be so invited.

Ms. Farris joined Renaissance School in 2014 as a member of the Mathematics Faculty and has also taught Business, Fundraising, Physics, and Senior Thesis before becoming Dean of Academics in 2020.

Ms. Farris relishes being a student, and during her time at Renaissance has pursued additional credits and professional development through the Klingenstein Center at Teachers College Columbia, the UVA School of Education and Human Development, Virginia community colleges, St. Johnsbury Academy APSI, the CFA Institute, Speak!, and others. Ms. Farris and her husband enjoy camping at our National Parks with their dogs and cultivating heritage Virginia apples in Augusta County.

Giselle Gautreau

Visual Arts

Giselle Gautreau is an award-winning professional artist with an active art practice and exhibition history. As an instructor, Ms. Gautreau teaches Visual Art, Studio Art and Portfolio I, II. Ms. Gautreau is a New England native, growing up in both Massachusetts and Vermont. She received her BFA from Maine College of Art and Design and holds a Master’s in Fine Arts in Painting from Virginia Commonwealth University. Ms. Gautreau has received awards and recognition for her work, including a Professional Artist Fellowship from the Virginia Museum of Fine Art, a Fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and a grant recipient of International Encaustic Artists. Her paintings have been exhibited widely and she has been featured in public, private, and corporate collections.

Ms. Gautreau’s teaching experience is wide-ranging, including The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Virginia Commonwealth University, and Brightpoint Community College, as well as encaustic and oil painting workshops. She is a resident artist at McGuffey Art Center in Charlottesville, Virginia, where she keeps her studio and shares her art practice with the community. You can see her paintings online at www.gisellegautreau.com

Outside of teaching and painting, Ms. Gautreau enjoys spending time with her family, including her two college-aged children and her pet cockatiel Kiwi.

Richelle Claiborne

Executive Assistant To The Head of School
Theater

Richelle Claiborne is a Charlottesville native who originally left Charlottesville to enroll in Rutgers, The State University of NJ, from which she holds a B.A. in Sociology and Africana Studies. She returned to Charlottesville in 2000 to be closer to her family, during which time Mrs. Claiborne discovered her love for fundraising and donor relations at UVa while working in the Arts & Sciences Development Office and Health Systems Development for the UVa Children’s Hospital. A talented actor and soul, jazz, and R&B singer, she has also performed on numerous stages up and down the east coast from Live Arts to The Apollo. Mrs. Claiborne brings to Renaissance School over 20 years of experience in building client and community relationships, performance art, and management. Ms. Claiborne is proud to be a current member of The Haven’s Board of Directors and holds membership in the Charlottesville Players Guild. In addition, Mrs. Claiborne is currently seeking her M.Ed in Counseling from William & Mary and supports student-athletes at UVA part-time as a mentor. When she is not spending time with her husband and daughter, Mrs. Claiborne’s interests include reading, writing, transformational coaching, and cooking huge Sunday dinners for her family and friends.

Sara C. Johnson

Head Of School

College Counseling

Dr. Sara C. Johnson was born in Louisville, KY and graduated with honors from Indiana State University where she earned her Bachelor of Fine Art degree with a double emphasis and a minor in art history. Dr. Johnson continued her studies at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where she earned her first terminal degree, a Master of Fine Arts in media. While living in Knoxville, Dr. Johnson taught in the School of Art at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Dr. Johnson went on to earn her doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania in the field of Organizational and Educational Leadership. Dr. Johnson’s scholarship focuses on critical multimodal literacy in leader learning. In February of 2020, Dr. Johnson was one of only 20 national and international candidates accepted to the Klingenstein Heads of Schools Program at Teachers College, Columbia University.

Dr. Johnson has been at Charlottesville’s Renaissance School since 2002 first as a teacher then as an administrator. In 2009, Dr. Johnson was welcomed by the Board of Directors as Renaissance School’s second Head of School. Dr. Johnson developed Renaissance School’s unique College Counseling program, which boasts an average of $235,000 per student in scholarships and awards. Outside of school, Dr. Johnson enjoys writing, reading, running, photography, and swimming. Dr. Johnson is certified through USA Swimming, serves on the Cavalier Aquatics Parent Advisory Board, and enjoys officiating swim meets. Above all else, Dr. Johnson enjoys spending time with her husband and two children.

Anita McGinty

I am a fundamental believer in all people’s capacity to learn, grow, and evolve. My early career, as a speech-language pathologist, was spent drawing out the academic potential of children with severe communication and reading difficulties. After pursuing my Ph.D. in Educational Psychology, I spent a decade designing, implementing and/or researching programs that could improve the way children were taught and supported on a daily basis.

My work brought me in contact with thousands of schools collectively educating millions of children, from rural Appalachia to thriving urban hubs. And while I met many amazing individuals, it became clear that education- as experience – was varied and inequitable, leaving many children’s potential unseen and underdeveloped.

As imperfect as this system was, it has been further stretched (potentially unrecognizably so) in the wake of COVID-19. It feels that there is no longer time for incremental steps forward. I hear a call for new paradigms and new thinking among the educators, parents, social organizations, and community organizations whom I serve. One of the most critical questions being raised is how to build wellbeing and resilience into the education system, while also improving children’s academic outcomes.

The question is larger than the education system and my recent consulting has allowed me to learn from a range of efforts focused on wellbeing- from adolescent education to prison-based mental health to drug rehabilitation. Much of what is innovative sits within the wisdom and craft of experienced practitioners. To bring this knowledge to the forefront of the conversation on wellbeing, research must be done. To ensure that these innovations reach all parts of society, including the most vulnerable and marginalized, research must be done. Without an evidence-base, innovative ideas will languish outside the public systems, reaching only those able to seek these ideas themselves.

This past year’s work has given rise to my becoming a co-founder of Innate Health Research (IHR). IHR is designed to fill that gap between what is happening in relation to wellbeing work in ad hoc ways- one community at a time and one practitioner at a time- and what is needed to make a more systematic transformation. The work is an exciting blend of my past professional experiences and my personal passions and I am grateful to the wellspring of partnerships and supporters helping to make Innate Health Research a reality.

Becky Wilbur

Mathematics

Dr. Rebecca Wilbur grew up in the Midwest (Minnesota), went to college on the west coast (Stanford University, B.S. Biology), spent some time north of the border (Canadian Outward Bound Wilderness School Assistant Instructor), and went to graduate school on the east coast (Duke University, Ph.D. Botany). Her main interests in biology are forest ecology, ecosystem function, and biodiversity of the Southern Appalachians. She has been a mentor, teacher, and researcher at UVA’s Mountain Lake Biological Station. Before coming to Renaissance School in 2006, she worked with the Environmental Education Center and Ivy Creek Foundation, helped teach science at the elementary school level, taught a non-majors biology class at UVA, tutored math and science at the Learning Center of Charlottesville, and coached many Odyssey of the Mind and Destination Imagination teams. She has taught both biology and mathematics at Renaissance School. In mathematics, she enjoys encouraging students to think logically and symbolically and to search for and identify patterns. In her spare time, she likes canoeing, swimming, music, cooking, hiking, and visiting her grandchildren.

Shanil Virani

PHYSICS and ASTRONOMY and MATH

Shanil Virani is an award-winning astronomer, a passionate science educator, creator/host of Our Island Universe, & co-author of “Daughter of the Stars”, a photo book about light pollution and the loss of night.

Shanil earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Honours Physics and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy at the University of Waterloo. He did his graduate work at Yale University where he studied supermassive black holes lurking at the centers of galaxies in the nearby and distant Universe. Prior to Yale, Shanil spent 5+ years at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics as part of the Science Team of the Chandra X-ray Observatory, NASA’s flagship space-based X-ray mission. He received 10 group achievement commendations either from NASA or from The Smithsonian Institution for his contributions to the mission. In 2009, he was awarded the Chambliss Astronomy Achievement Award medal by the American Astronomical Society for exemplary research as a graduate student.

In 2013, he was appointed a Solar System Ambassador by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Solar System Ambassadors communicate the excitement of JPL’s space exploration missions and information about recent discoveries to people in their local communities.

In 2017, Shanil was nominated by his students for James Madison University’s General Education Distinguished Teaching Award.

Shanil has authored or co-authored over 100 publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals and his work has been cited more than 3,000 times.

Shanil also created and hosts #OurIslandUniverse, a weekly online podcast that looks at all things space and how what goes on “up there” affects our life “down here”. The central theme is to promote the public understanding of science, our exploration of the natural world, and how modern science is really a continuation of our species’ natural desire to understand the cosmos and our perspective within it.

Thomas Inigo

Triathalon Coach

Thomas Inigo started riding bikes as soon as he was old enough to crawl and has not slowed down. He is now an avid triathlete, a Boston-qualified marathoner, and a certified personal trainer through the American Council on Exercise.

Thomas grew up in Charlottesville and attended Charlottesville High school from 2013-2017. He played four years of varsity soccer, as well as competed on the Virginia Olympic Development Team.

Thomas earned his Bachelors of Science in Kinesiology from the Curry School of education at the University of Virginia in the spring of 2021. With his curriculum focusing on exercise physiology, biomechanics, and athletic nutrition,

Thomas has put this education to good use in his own training and athletic career. Thomas won the Greenbelt Marathon in the fall of 2020, and soon thereafter broke the 3-hour mark in 2021 with an official marathon time of 2:57:33.

In the summer of 2021, both Thomas’ physical therapy education, as well as his athletic resolve and resilience were put to the test when he was struck by a car while riding his bike. Following the accident, Thomas worked hard to regain his health. He is now completely recovered, back to a full training load, and is beginning to race again.

Thomas has held his personal training certification since he was in high school, and has worked at several local gyms, accruing invaluable knowledge and leadership experience along the way. He has a deep passion for all things related to exercise and endurance sports, and finds nothing more exciting and fulfilling than helping others improve themselves as athletes.

Thomas is always looking for the next challenge, and is excited to have the opportunity to build, educate, and race alongside the Renaissance Triathlon Team!

Ronda Hewitt

Performing Arts

Ronda graduated from the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco in acting and has a Bachelor of Science teaching degree from the University of Illinois. While at U of I she was honored with the FMC Award, a Leadership in Education Scholarship. While living in San Francisco she co-founded both Fourth Monkey Theater Ensemble while in San Francisco, which was a theater collective working at the Dolores Street Community Center, and partnered as a collective with many congregations which had no sanctuary and as a performing space with El Teatro de Esperanza. The community center housed both a homeless shelter and Aids hospice in the Hispanic historic Mission District. This enclave of true community collaboration made an imprint in her life.

From there she co-founded the Late Night Series, to raise funds for the New York showcases of the MFA students at Asolo Repertory Theater. This program is now part of the MFA in Acting curriculum at Florida State University. She also worked for 10 years at the professional LORT (league of regional theater) acting company, Asolo Repertory Theatre where she was an actor in the rep company and also was the Associate Marketing Director. Ronda has also worked as a counselor and assistant director in Admissions and Financial Aid at various accredited Art colleges in the San Francisco Bay area. She also was a grants manager giving undergraduate grants and vocational grants to students in need.

Ronda has acted, directed and produced over 100 plays. She is a proud, retired member of Actors’ Equity Association. She also was the lead in the independent film Facade which won the Jury Prize at the Tribeca Film Festival. Ronda was on staff for 10 years at Live Arts in various roles of General Manager, Marketing Director, and Education Director. While she was Education Director she was the drama teacher at Renaissance while Chris Baumer was on sabbatical. Ronda has been a classroom teacher in Texas, Florida, and here in Virginia. Recently Ronda was the Drama Teacher at Free Union Country School here in Charlottesville and continues to teach and acted in over 15 plays at Live Arts. Some favorite Live Arts roles include: Far Away, The World’s Wife, A Streetcar Named Desire, and Boston Marriage. Ronda studied Stretch work for three years with founder Richard Seyd. She received his blessing to teach it at Live Arts for three years and recently restarted this advanced acting lab at Live Arts.

Nora Evans

MATH

Nora Evans is originally from Bucharest, Romania. She is a graduate of the Polytechnical University of Bucharest with a B.S. in Computer Science. In Fall 2004, Nora moved to Charlottesville to pursue graduate school at the University of Virginia. She holds Master in Computer Science, Master of Science in Mathematics and Master of Teaching degrees from the University of Virginia. Nora has several years of experience as a software engineer, and authored several research papers in Computer Science. Nora is passionate about Math education, especially for girls and women. Nora co-founded a Math Circle for girls and held lessons for four years until the COVID-19 pandemic. In January 2020, Nora decided to focus full time on education. After a year as a teaching intern at Monticello High School, she is pursuing a Virginia teaching license. In 2022, Nora joined the teaching faculty at Renaissance School. Besides coding and teaching math, Nora enjoys hiking and biking with her husband and two children.

Rick France

French

Patrick L. France (Rick) joined Renaissance School in 2017 with 48 years in Virginia independent school education as a teacher and administrator.

Mr. France, originally from Rochester, New York, earned an A.B. from Transylvania University (French), an M.A. from Middlebury College (French), and Certificate programs at the Université d’Avignon in France and the University of Virginia (Academic Leadership). While Mr. France served in a variety of roles in his three previous schools, he continuously taught French.

In the classroom Mr. France believes that all students can learn additional languages, no matter what their learning style might be. His classes emphasize excellent pronunciation and the development of proficiency with the French language.

Sarah Goodbar

English

Sarah Goodbar grew up in Amherst, Massachusetts. In 1998, she received her Bachelor of Arts in Languages and Literature from Bard College. Her senior thesis was a study of the narrative method of Joseph Conrad’s Nostromo. After graduating, she lived in Times Square for a summer while attending “Latin Bootcamp” at the Latin/Greek Institute of CUNY. She worked at Smith College and studied Shakespeare and Virgil at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst before entering the English PhD program at the University of Virginia. She moved to Charlottesville intending to specialize in the classical tradition in 18th-century poetry. At UVA, Ms. Goodbar taught academic and professional writing using the Little Red SchoolHouse method and did coursework in Old English, Victorian poetics, American Transcendentalism, bibliographic studies, creative writing, and more. In 2002, Ms. Goodbar decided to leave the doctoral program with her Master’s, taking her oral examination in English Romanticism. In the ensuing years, Ms. Goodbar has taught language arts, literature, and writing in local public and private schools, done coursework in education through the Curry School, been involved in Chinese martial arts and lion dance through her family’s kung fu school, and worked as a high-school librarian. At Renaissance School, Ms. Goodbar enjoys teaching young adults about the English language, world literature, imperialism, philosophy, and logic. She lives in Greene County with her family and several cute but uncooperative pets.

Nell Halladay

Math & Science

Dr. Nell Halladay, “Doc Nell”, is originally from New Jersey where she lived for 39 years. She is a graduate from Glassboro State College with a B.S. in chemistry and also holds M.S. and Ph. D. degrees in chemistry from Seton Hall University. Following a postdoctoral position at City University of New York, Nell began a 12 year career as a pharmaceutical chemist. She switched gears in June of 2000, moved to Charlottesville, and attended the Virginia School of Massage. In 2001 Nell joined the teaching faculty at Renaissance School while earning her national certification as a massage therapist. Doc Nell operated her massage therapy business from 2002 until 2018. She also did massage therapy as a volunteer for Hospice of the Piedmont and working on both patients as well as their caregivers. Nell also taught introductory level chemistry classes at Seton Hall University and Piedmont Virginia Community College and tutored chemistry and math at both the high school and college level. Doc Nell enjoys reading, hiking, and gardening. She now lives in Gordonsville with her partner Walt and Abbey the cat.

Lady Keller

Business Manager

Lady Keller is a native of Los Angeles, CA but considers herself a Virginian since raising her family and living on a working farm in White Hall, VA for over 20 years. After graduating from high school in Middleburg, VA, Mrs. Keller then returned to her home state to attend the University of Southern California where she graduated in 1986 with a BS degree in Finance.

After college, the east coast beckoned her back. Mrs. Keller began her career in Washington, DC working in the Finance/Treasury Departments on political campaigns, a Presidential Inaugural and then as a Political Appointee in the Office of the Secretary at The Department of Transportation where she discovered a passion for Governmental Affairs. After a few years, her career then took her to work in the private sector for a grassroots lobbying firm and a public relations firm, as Media Director, where she loved riling up constituents in targeted Congressional Districts to fight unjust legislation.

After 10 years working (and fighting the traffic) in Washington, DC, Mrs. Keller and her husband decided to move to Charleston, SC where she worked as the Business Manager for an historic theatre, The Footlight Players. After 4 years, she and her husband and two small children moved back to central Virginia to resume the management of the family farm, Mount Air Farm, in White Hall. In 2007, Mrs. Keller assumed the position of Business Manager for a new school for boys, The Field School, and continued in that role until 2015.

Mrs. Keller spends her spare time reading (she considers herself a library junkie), running, practicing yoga, hiking in the woods, traveling, attending yoga festivals, dancing and spending as much time with her husband, four children and two dogs. Her future dreams involve hiking the Appalachian Trail and continuing to learn as much as possible about the world around us.

Mack Mclellan Jr.

Dean Of Students, Diversity And Inclusion

Civic Engagement, Independent Study & Physical Activity

Mack McLellan Jr. is a Baltimore native who moved to Charlottesville in 2016. Before moving to Charlottesville, Mr. McLellan earned a B.A. in Sociology from the University of MD, College Park in 2004 and a Master’s of Social Work degree from the University of Maryland, School of Social Work in 2012. Mr. McLellan has combined his knowledge of Social Work, Yoga and Mindfulness to serve the citizens of Charlottesville in a multitude of ways.

In 2018, Mr. McLellan created Simunye (Zulu for “We Are One”), a nonprofit organization that facilitates a series of programs geared toward academic achievement and success, as well as character building and increasing self-esteem. Simunye programs include school and community Book Clubs for Children of Color and monthly Community Reading Events in Albemarle and Charlottesville neighborhoods. Children are provided culturally competent books for both the Book Clubs and Community Reading Events for grade levels K-12.

In 2019, he joined Common Ground Healing Arts as a meditation facilitator for the Meditation for People of Color group. Mr. McLellan, along with three Women of Color, provided guided meditations every Sunday for BIPOC in Charlottesville until the pandemic.

During the summer of 2021, Mr. McLellan facilitated a Civic Engagement class through Renaissance School. Five Renaissance students organized a well attended free concert for Charlottesville teens from various racial, ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds that celebrated diversity and created youth unity.

Mr. McLellan is excited to continue supporting Renaissance students who want to make positive changes in their communities.

Anna Minutella

Sciences

Mga, Mj, Mun

Anna Minutella grew up on her family’s farm in Southwest Virginia. She attended the University of Virginia where she earned a B.A. in both biology and psychology and spent much of her time doing research in children’s language development and brain formation.

After graduation, Ms. Minutella moved to Baltimore, Maryland with her husband. There, she taught middle school science, served as chair of the science department, and developed the curriculum for the school’s fifth through eighth science program. She and her husband moved back to the Charlottesville area in the summer of 2012 and she joined the Renaissance School faculty in 2013.

Ms. Minutella obtained her Master of Social Work from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2018 and is pursuing licensure as a licensed clinical social worker. She is currently doing attachment-based therapy with children and their families and is part of a research team working to improve therapeutic methods.

Ms. Minutella’s teaching philosophy is based on using a variety of perspectives and methods for each subject in order to truly involve the students in the material and ensure they gain a deeper understanding. She wants her students to acquire the same appreciation for science that fuels her passion and excitement.

Eric Swartzentruber

Director Of Admissions

A native of Princeton, New Jersey, Eric Swartzentruber brings to Renaissance a rich background of experience at various East Coast independent schools, all of them intentionally small. While holding his first position as admissions director, Mr. Swartzentruber received his BA in Liberal Studies with a concentration in humanities from Rider University. During subsequent years, he has enjoyed traveling extensively to recruit students from the US and around the world. In 2015 he was one of two US school administrators, along with delegates from schools and Departments of Education in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, invited to represent Western high schools to Chinese school officials in Hangzhou and Suzhou.

Alongside his school work, Mr. Swartzentruber maintains a career in choral music. He has performed and recorded with many leading ensembles including Early Music New York, Vox Vocal Ensemble, American Boychoir, Chanticleer, Piffaro, Parthenia, and the New York Philharmonic.

With his wife, who is German by birth and a classicist by training, Mr. Swartzentruber shares a love of nature, hiking, cooking, language, sixteenth-century polyphony, current events, theology, art, and their two adult daughters, not necessarily in that order.

Lou Tanner

History

Mr. Lou Tanner has been teaching History and Government at Renaissance School since its founding in 1999. After first receiving a B. A. from University of Virginia in 1975, he later studied Russian, European, and American History in graduate school. Along the way he took or audited courses in numerous other fields as well, including Ancient, Middle Eastern, and South and East Asian History. Within a somewhat narrow range he reads widely, with interests tending to history, travel writing, biography, current affairs, and non-fiction in general. With wife Stephanie, whom he met while backpacking in Australia light years ago, he enjoys traveling, gardening (mostly as an armchair hobby—it is her passion), reading, hiking, and birdwatching. In addition, he speaks Russian and French—though only passingly—and has a smattering of Spanish and Latin. Extensive travel in North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia—where he also lived for almost five years—has only deepened an abiding conviction that the study of History is not only essential, it is also—dare it be said—fun.

Sarah Goodbar

Sarah Goodbar grew up in Amherst, Massachusetts. In 1998, she received her Bachelor of Arts in Languages and Literature from Bard College. Her senior thesis was a study of the narrative method of Joseph Conrad’s Nostromo. After graduating, she lived in Times Square for a summer while attending “Latin Bootcamp” at the Latin/Greek Institute of CUNY. She worked at Smith College and studied Shakespeare and Virgil at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst before entering the English PhD program at the University of Virginia. She moved to Charlottesville intending to specialize in the classical tradition in 18th-century poetry. At UVA, Ms. Goodbar taught academic and professional writing using the Little Red SchoolHouse method and did coursework in Old English, Victorian poetics, American Transcendentalism, bibliographic studies, creative writing, and more. In 2002, Ms. Goodbar decided to leave the doctoral program with her Master’s, taking her oral examination in English Romanticism. In the ensuing years, Ms. Goodbar has taught language arts, literature, and writing in local public and private schools, done coursework in education through the Curry School, been involved in Chinese martial arts and lion dance through her family’s kung fu school, and worked as a high-school librarian. At Renaissance School, Ms. Goodbar enjoys teaching young adults about the English language, world literature, imperialism, philosophy, and logic. She lives in Greene County with her family and several cute but uncooperative pets.

Kay Manchester

Kay Manchester has extensive experience leading Human Resources, Training and Sales Development across three industries. Her undergraduate degree is from Berea College in Kentucky, and she holds an MBA from James Madison University. She has a passion for continuous learning and diversity/equity. Kay works with a local consulting firm providing a myriad of Human Resources and Training services. She is a Class of 2015 parent.

Richard Needham

Richard Needham is the Sales Manager at Clayborne Education, and he is the parent of a Class of 2013 alum. He holds an M.F.A. in Film Production with an award for academic excellence from the University of Miami School of Communication in Coral Gables Florida. Richard has wrangled chickens in Central Park for a Busta Rhymes video, produced The Ticket, a documentary about lottery winners (currently on Hulu), traveled to Mongolia to film reindeer herders, and has worked as a cinematographer on numerous films for artist Dara Friedman. Richard is chair of the board for the Congo Leadership Initiative. He loves to travel, and surf.

Chuck Henter

Charles M. Henter is the founder of HenterLaw PLC. He practices education and college law, among other disciplines. He graduated magna cum laude from George Mason University School of Law. Since the Fall of 2003, he has served as an Adjunct Professor at George Mason University School of Law.

Robert Gray

Robert Gray is a visionary, businessman, brand strategist and social entrepreneur with a passion for education reform and economic empowerment. As a native of Albemarle County, VA who was born in Charlottesville, he was able to experience firsthand both the opportunities and gaps that existed for the communities that raised him. As a result, he fostered a strong determination to operationalize socio-economic mobility as a means for building generational wealth and knowledge, especially among marginalized communities. His lifelong mission is to educate and empower all people socially, politically, and economically.

Tammy Futrell

Tamara Futrell serves as the Dean for Diversity, Inclusion and Student Engagement at Washington and Lee University. As an administrator, educator, social justice advocate, she is committed to bringing awareness about educational opportunities that exist for all students and eradicating barriers to access and equity. Having attended both public and private schools in her formative years, she believes in the importance of a strong educational foundation. In the infamous words of Nelson Mandela “education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

Nora Demleitner

Nora V. Demleitner is the Roy L. Steinheimer Jr. Professor of Law at Washington and Lee University. She served as dean at two law schools and is a national expert on criminal justice issues. She is a graduate of Yale Law School. Nora is also a Class of 2019 parent. Nora’s focus is always on students and educational outcomes. She is deeply committed to diversity and equity in education, the legal system, and beyond.

Faculty & Leadership

Leadership Team

Dr. Sara C. Johnson

HEAD OF SCHOOL

Richelle Claiborne

Executive Assistant to the Head of School, Front Office Manager

Bethany Farris

DEAN OF ACADEMICS

Lady Keller

Director of Finance & Operations, Registrar

Mack McLellan Jr.

DEAN OF STUDENTS, DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION

Stephen Haske

Director of Facilities & Information Technology

Faculty & Administration

Emily Avakian

Richelle Claiborne

Hannah Deal

Sally Duncan

Bethany Farris

Dr. Carolyn Fay

Rick France

Giselle Gautreau

Sarah Goodbar

Dr. Nell Halladay

Dr. Sara C. Johnson

Joaquin Litzenberger

Mack McLellan Jr.

Anna Minutella

Jeffrey Prado

Jay Pun

Lou Tanner

Board of Directors

Tammy Futrell

Advisor

Robert Gray

Advisor

Dr. Sara Johnson

Head of School

Chuck Henter

Vice Chair

Anita McGinty

Advisor

Richard Needham

Chair

Follow Us On Instagram - @renschool

renschool

Faculty &
Leadership