Josie Warner

• B.A. Developmental Education, Pacific Oaks College
  
• Endorsement in Early Childhood Education.

Josie joined the KapKa teaching team in the fall of 2007 after eight years teaching Kindergarten and First Grade at the Seattle Hebrew Academy. While acting as a substitute teacher in her college years Josie found her passion for early elementary education. She loves to help children take charge of their learning and share their excitement as they explore their interests and test their ideas. Her project-based approach to teaching is a natural fit with the experiential learning at the core of KapKa education.

Josie has extensive experience teaching literacy at the early elementary level: helping children to learn to read, to understand and to enjoy reading. It is one of Josie’s great rewards as a teacher to see the kids become passionate about literacy as they develop their identities as readers and authors in their own lives.

Josie and her husband have a young son, Oscar (4). The family enjoys biking, hiking and canoeing. They are regular visitors to the arboretum where they explore the water and watch turtles. They have a well-used kitchen and visit the library every week to bring home piles of books.

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Susan Sasnett

• B.S. Occupational Therapy, University of Washington
  

Susan's career at KapKa began as a founding parent in 1989. Since that time, she has been the treasurer, sewing and cooking instructor, administrator, and substitute teacher before joining the full-time teaching team in the fall of 2001. An activist at heart, she was also instrumental in the founding of Coho Elementary, an alternative public school.

Trained as an occupational therapist, she has worked with a variety of special needs children and helped create successful learning environments for them. She also has 20 years of experience as a Certified Childbirth Educator and has trained new birth educators for the past 10 years. Susan is greatly interested in helping children learn to read and has recently completed a workshop in the Four Block method.

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Bill Sweigert

• Masters in Teaching (IslandWood/City University)
• Endorsement in Science and Elementary Education

Bill joined the Kapka teaching team in the fall of 2008. Previously, he taught Montessori Pre-school in Magnolia and has worked for four years with k-5th graders at Coe Elementary. Bill is inspired by the notion that nature is our first and best teacher. Understanding the natural world will provide us with the answers to not only scientific questions, but questions of self exploration.

EarthCorps and IslandWood gave Bill his first taste of environmental and outdoor education. At EarthCorps he lead international crews on projects in environmental restoration and education. While teaching trail building to his crew he naturally had to teach some basic math skills. One of his crew members said "If I had Bill as a teacher in school, I would have learned math." The lessons he taught at EarthCorps renewed his desire to teach. IslandWood provided the bridge from strictly outdoor education to working with classroom students in the wilderness. He continued his masters in teaching at City University where he taught science at Aki Kurose.

Some of Bill's mentors include his stone age survival teacher at Spokane Falls Community College. There he learned the true art of tribal life, fire making, atlatl, bow and arrow crafting. This course began his study of Pacific Northwest flora and fauna. He studied yoga and natural health for nearly 7 years from Dr. Bill Mitchell one of the founders of Bastyr University.

Bill's hobbies include but are not limited to bicycling with his one year old son (Liam), sailing, hiking, salsa dancing, singing, story telling and drama.

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Jamie Shilling Music Specialist

• B.A. Art & Education, Lewis & Clark College
  
• Teaching Certificates from Oregon and Illinois

 

Jamie has taught a wide spectrum of subjects in preschools, elementary and high schools in Chicago and Seattle, the latter including AE2 Decatur, Children's World Montessori, and University Co-op. Her work in song leading, music-making and visual arts has promoted community building and curriculum enrichment in Seattle schools since 1981. She joined KapKa in 1989 as the music specialist and taught full-time from 1998.through our 2004-05 school year and is once again our music specialist.

Jamie's special projects at KapKa have included writing songs with the students and recording an inspiring CD with the KapKa kids.

Among other art and music experiences, Jamie studied printmaking at the Art Institute of Chicago.

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Kathi Bulfin Educational Director

• M Ed. - Danforth Educational Leadership & Ed. Policy, University of Washington
• B.S. - Elementary Education, University of Wisconsin, Madison
• Washington State Principal Certification
• Washington State Teacher Certification with endorsements in K-8 Education, 4-12 Social Studies
• National Board Certified Teacher: Early Adolescent History/Social Studies

Kathi joined the KapKa team in the spring of 2008. Her passion for progressive, alternative education began with university studies in Wisconsin and Washington that emphasized child-centered learning communities. While pursuing graduate course work at Pacific Oaks College NW she fell in love with emergent, child-centered curriculum that addresses the social, physical, psychological and academic needs of children.

As KapKa's educational director, Kathi focuses on creating a curriculum rich in creativity, art, music, and drama that also embeds the basic concepts of math, literacy, science and social studies. It is her belief that progressive education is dynamic, and through carefully observation of each individual enriching and meaningful instructional strategies can be used to engage the whole child. Kathi acts as a curriculum coach/mentor for the KapKa teachers and provides educational support for our parent helpers. She is committed to providing an innovative learning environment based on partnerships with our children, parents, teachers and the greater community. The energy and flow of ideas that go into creating an emergent, child centered, learning community, and a love for helping children become life-long learners is what drew her to KapKa.

In her spare time Kathi enjoys reading, gardening, camping, writing, water-coloring, creating poetry, beading, yoga, hiking, and hanging out with friends and family.

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Signe Roscoe Office Manager

Signe came to KapKa as a parent in 1998 and both her daughters cherished their years here. She found being a part of the community an opportunity for personal growth and has made life-long friends.

Her role as KapKa's part-time office person began in 2002 and includes a wide range of responsibilities from bookkeeping and facility oversight to school events/fieldtrips, parent liaison and school communications to name a few.

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Kerri McCarthy Reading Specialist

Kerri joined KapKa in the fall of 2007. She has extensive training and experience in specialized reading instruction, including training in Slingerland, Linguistic Remedies, Wilson and coursework in special education topics.

An avid reader herself, Kerri enjoys helping students who need individual instruction in order to acquire basic reading skills. In addition to her work at KapKa, Kerri is Reading Specialist at St. John School and the Assistant Director of Madison Learning Specialists.

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