Maestra Michelle is the Director and Lead Teacher. For more than 20 years Michelle has been teaching. She holds WI teaching licenses in Early Childhood, Bilingual Education, and Spanish. Michelle earned her BS in Education from UW-Madison and added her Bilingual Certification through Edgewood College. Michelle continues to seek out professional development to inform her teaching practices.
Maestra Marie is the Administrator and Teacher at El Jardín. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from UW-Madison and has a long history of working with children in the arts. Marie was the chairperson of a two-year artist-in-residence project at Schenk Elementary and has taught at Madison Cello Ensemble’s summer camps. Marie believes experiences and process art are more important that the end product for young children. She encourages students to create and explore in ways that feed their creativity and curiosity.
Prior to opening El Jardín, Michelle and Marie taught 4K together for 5 years in a bilingual MMSD classroom. Their 4K classroom was written about in a chapter in Access and Equity: Promoting High Quality Mathematics in Grades PreK-2, a book published by The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. This was the culmination of a two-year professional development cohort with the UW-Madison Department of Early Childhood Education.