Our Team

Calling all of our people to the well

We are building a non-profit culture we won’t need to heal from

The brilliance behind The Teaching Well’s work is our people.

Our staff is made up entirely of former teachers, school, district and non-profit leaders. We understand the complexity and challenges inherent in school and non-profit environments and work intentionally to build the services we needed to have stayed in the profession. Collectively we hold over 100 years of experience serving as educators, facilitators, coaches, strategists and healers.

The Teaching Well is guided by a multi-faceted Board of Directors that offer their time, expertise, and resources to support the fiscal solvency and strategic oversight of the organization.

Learn more about our team:

Staff

Board of Directors

Our Team

Executive Director (she/her/sis)
A paradigm shifting leader and Restorative Practitioner, Lindsey is the embodiment of Angela Davis’ statement, “we must always attempt to lift as we climb.” Leading through genuine relationships and humor, Lindsey has an unmatched ability to see others’ innate gifts and reflect them back in ways that make room for each Teaching Well staff member and client to show up as their most favorite selves in service to their students, communities, and loved ones. A former teacher, school administrator, and district leader, she is highly skilled in navigating complex systems, with an eye towards strategic change management and communication cascades. Lindsey believes that in order to reach collective liberation, we must find ways to sustain adults in our schools to ensure trauma-sensitive continuity of care. With her fierce advocacy for folks on the margins, she builds human-centered, anti-racist systems to inform strong adult school climates. The daughter of two educators, Lindsey is a #HellaBay, Black and Indigenous “Panther Cub,” who fights with the strength of her ancestors behind her for the liberation of her own children and young people everywhere.

Deputy Director (she/her/ella)
Marisol is an anchor of organizational effectiveness with mountain energy that exudes strength and steadiness. As a former school leader, Marisol offers a unique perspective on how to support the transformation of school ecosystems toward human-centered policies and practices in ways that promote educator wellness and sustainability. At the Teaching Well, Marisol ensures our team is well-resourced with the tools needed to best serve our clients. Her impeccable foresight and resourceful and strategic approaches, helps those in and outside of the education field understand the direct correlation between adult wellness and organizational success. A dedicated wife and mother of 3, Marisol lovingly brings her Mama Bear energy to her work and our team. She is our “Jefa por Vida!”

Lead Facilitator (she/her)
Jill is a tenacious visionary, teacher, and coach. She is highly skilled at organizing systems and structures that facilitate empowering learning opportunities for both clients and members of our team. Forever a teacher, Jill creates and holds space in ways that invite growth, healing, and accountability, which set the foundation for dreaming and productivity to co-exist. She does this while offering multiple pathways and modalities toward healing and liberation. Always reflective of how she shows up as a white woman, Jill is a trusted co-conspirator in dismantling white-supremacist culture, shifting ways of learning toward collective liberation, and social responsibility. More than a colleague, Jill is a loving mama, dedicated partner and dear friend, who truly sees people just as they are and finds the lifelong learners and leaders in all of us.

Program Director (she/her/ella)
Lupe is a gifted facilitator, teacher, and artesana who possesses a grounding energy of love and transformation. As a former teacher and Instructional Coach, she has experienced first hand both the challenges and joys that come with working in schools. These experiences along with her own journey as a student have fueled her passion and commitment to systemic change and educational justice that is human-centered. While Lupe may initially come off as quiet and mysterious, when she speaks you ought to listen because she is a powerful change-maker who inspires with her innate ability to envision a better future. She empowers others to live according to their highest values and one of her greatest gifts is her ability to create space for others to reflect and take action with integrity. She coaches not by providing answers but by posing meaningful questions that lead to people realizing they already have everything they need within themselves.

Clinical Therapist
(she/her)
If “Cool as a cucumber” was a person that would be Erika. She brings the chill, calm, and go-with-the-flow healing to The Teaching Well’s clinical team—best yet she does it with a sense of humor and a smile. Erika’s approach to therapy leads with care and compassion. She came into the work to provide radical healing that meets people where they are at and uplifts and honors diverse ways of being.
Serving as an active mental health provider and educator in schools for the last 10 years, Erika holds a deep and intimate knowledge of what it means to be boots-on-the-ground for educators and is able to hold her clients through the unique set of challenges and complexities inherent in a school setting. On weekdays she splits her time between The Teaching Well’s clinical care program and valiantly supporting students and educators in a Richmond, CA based school. On weekends you can find her decompressing by watching sports or moving her body, chilling with her partner and nephews, or showering her loved ones with baked goods.

Managing Director (she/her)
Lena is a dedicated educational leader who possesses a calm and patient demeanor that allows for a compassionate approach when engaging with others. As an empathetic listener, she strives to nurture the mind, body and soul of those she works with to empower them in recognizing and leveraging their gifts to thrive in order to meet their professional and personal aspirations. Lena has passionately served in school communities for over 20 years as a teacher, instructional coach, administrator, and director of a teacher residency program. Throughout her journey, Lena has been driven to create inclusive and supportive environments that fosters the transformative power in education. She holds tight to the belief of the African proverb, “It takes a village to raise a child” and that village must embody positive health and wellness to thrive.

Executive Mindful Support Specialist (she/her)
Natalya is an equity-based coach, facilitator, systems thinker, and social justice advocate dedicated to reimagining how people and organizations cultivate connection and meaningful change. Drawing on her experience in humanitarian immigration law and as a K–12 educator and administrator, she understands that healing, learning, and liberation are deeply interconnected. Natalya grounds her work in the relationship between self and collective, supporting individuals and teams with equal parts grace and courage. Informed by restorative approaches to conflict and healing, she creates space to reflect honestly on the patterns, stories, and systems that shape our beliefs and relationships. Her approach blends a deep compassion with radical accountability — inviting growth that feels both expansive and sustainable. Natalya is guided by the ancestral wisdom of her Afro-Puerto Rican, Taíno, and Bohemian Czech roots, carrying forward a legacy of resilience, service, and embodied practice. Born in East Oakland, Natalya is a second-generation educator proudly raising her family in the same town that poured into her. Alongside her husband, she is committed to reinvesting in her community and nurturing a culture of belonging, excellence, and collective wellbeing.

Clinical Therapist
Bio coming soon...

Executive Mindful Support Specialist (he/him)
Marc Anthony is a healer and garden tender, cloaked as an educator. His ancestors were cultivators of the land as well as entrepreneurs, and through their teachings, they passed down the wisdom of holding reverence for the land while serving its people. Marc Anthony is a “warrior in a garden”, holding the fierce energy of liberation, abundance and connection for his community while also grounding them in containment, growth and peace. As a youth and family advocate it is Marc Anthony’s passion to support and uplift people in a holistic way. During his time as a public school teacher, he focused directly on the cultivation of young black males at the middle school level. Marc Anthony’s mission is to create safe spaces filled with joy and empathy. He has actively lived out this purpose serving as a role model for other young brothers while leading radical healing camps and mentoring incarcerated youth. Marc Anthony believes that when we create conditions for the soil to be fertile, the seeds can grow abundantly and nourish communities for generations. He is excited to mentor and coach educators who work with our future generations and share the holistic tools and practices that center our sacred future.

Lead Facilitator (he/him)
Darius is a natural connector with plug-and-outlet energy. An instinct for reading exactly what a room, or a person, needs in the moment: a charge or a release. A former special education teacher and network admin who found his footing in the Residency World supporting HBCU grads across the Bay Area, Darius built his career learning how schools can hold educators, not just extract from them. As a Lead Facilitator, he holds space for school leaders and traces the connective tissue running beneath our partnerships, the threads that make the work actually stick. He lives by Coltrane's reminder to "keep listening, never become deaf to the sounds of life.” The same instinct that lets him hear what a room needs before anyone says it out loud. The first son born in the U.S. to Haitian parents, Darius finds himself outside chasing golden hour with his film camera, or somewhere near a basketball court or soccer field, convinced you can learn everything you need to know about people by watching how they play.

Senior Operations Manager
(she/her/ella)
Often referred to as “Momma Emii” throughout her lifetime, Emily brings that big mothering energy to The Teaching Well as the Senior Operations Manager – she helps to run our whole life! She creates a safe space to all those she supports, offering laughter, kindness, deep listening, warmth, and empathy.
Emily has over 10 years of school experience working in both the front office and in the classroom, serving as a Spanish teacher as well as a community liaison and operations leader for charter schools across California. One of her mentees likened her to a sunflower, because she follows the light and channels that energy into all that she touches. As a Queer Latina, Emily wants all educators–those in the classroom as well as those in support or office roles–to see their value and feel their value and know that they are critical to the work of education.

Executive Assistant, Development Operations (she/her)
Emily, known as EmK around The Teaching Well, is a steady operational anchor who finds her happiest place behind the scenes, clearing the obstacles that can weigh down a leader's ability to lead. As a substitute teacher, she loves giving teachers the rare chance to step away from their classrooms, knowing someone who cares deeply for their students and their space is holding it so they can find some much-needed room to restore. Across a decade of leading operations at Galileo Learning, her most fulfilling moments were the times she created the conditions for her leaders to lead with confidence, learning that operational excellence is really about uplifting and empowering people.
A white woman committed to her own growth, EmK has spent years learning to recognize the white supremacy culture characteristics she'd once mistaken for strengths, like perfectionism and a sense of urgency. Naming and questioning them is a practice she's energized to keep deepening inside a community that is unapologetically pro-Black and pro-queer.
Outside of work, you might find EmK cheering on her children at volleyball and baseball games or running through the redwoods. Most of all, she loves chasing adventure and a good meal with her best friend and husband.