I hold an Early Childhood-12th grade Texas Music Educators certification, as well as Kodaly & Orff certifications. (Kodaly is an approach to teaching music that aims to create musically literate and productive students through movement, listening skills, and the use of culturally relevant folk music. Orff is an approach to teaching music that aims to create inventive and productive musicians through movement, improvisation, simple instruments & chants. They work together fantastically in the music classroom.)

My college career started in southwestern Michigan, where I earned a BA in Communication (focusing in Journalism & Public Relations and minoring in Spanish) from Andrews University. Then, after teaching Spanish for a year in Vermont, I moved to Texas and became part of the Fine Arts Department of UT-Brownsville (now UT-RGV), where I took music pedagogy, theory & history courses, participated in nearly all of the small ensembles, taught preschool music classes and private voice lessons. After earning my certification, I began teaching elementary music for the Brownsville ISD, and then moved to San Antonio to join NEISD on the Regency Place Elementary team. I taught at Regency Place for 9 years before moving to the Pre-K Academy at West Avenue when the school opened.