I am a graduate of Hampton High School in Allison Park and of the University of Virginia where I majored in English and minored in Drama. I also have a Secondary Teaching Certificate from Bowling Green State University and two years in the Cultural and LIterary Theory Ph,D. program at Carnegie Mellon University. In addition to teaching 11th grade Honors and Applied level English students, I teach Public Speaking, Acting I and Acting II. I have always been particularly interested in the performing arts, having worked as a performer, director and writer of musical theater with theater companies in Virginia, Ohio and Western PA. Here at Freeport I have directed the Fall Plays (including my own modern day, musicalized version of A Midsummer Night's Dream) and have overseen various student led productions. I also take students each year to participate in the Pittsburgh Pubilc Theater Shakespeare Monologue Contest. As the mother of a young man with autism, I have also been very involved over the past three decades with the special needs community. While I was raising my three boys, and before I returned to teaching, I served as Executive Director of the Advisory Board on Autism and Related Disorders (now Autism Connection of PA). I continue to work with this very well respected organization, and to run their Freeport Area Support Group for family members of individuals with autism.