I've been a teacher for twenty-six years, and I'll be honest — there was a stretch a few years back when I wasn't sure I'd stay in education. I'd gotten tired. A little angry, even. But then I found my way into Montessori, and into a school that reminded me why I'd started in the first place.
Now I'm building something new. Calm Creek is a place for kids who need a different way in — and for the parents who've been looking for someone who gets it.
I love this work. I cannot wait to meet your kiddo. ❤️
I started teaching in the late nineties. Special education, because it was the work that felt like it mattered most. For the first decade or so, it did. I learned how to read an IEP. I learned how to run a resource room. I learned how much of this job happens in tiny moments that nobody watches — a kid finishing a problem they couldn't finish yesterday, or sounding out a word they've been avoiding for a year, or putting their head down on your shoulder because they're finally tired in a good way.
And then, for a while, I got tired in a bad way. I'd watched too many kids get moved through systems that weren't built for them. I'd sat through too many IEP meetings where the plan on paper was going to fail the kid in the room. I wasn't sure I could keep doing the work and still feel like the work was worth doing.
That's when I found Montessori — and more specifically, a school that reminded me what I'd loved in the first place. Montessori takes seriously that kids learn with their hands and their bodies, not just their ears. It respects the pace each kid sets. It trusts that a kid who is concentrating is a kid who is learning. Working in that environment gave me back the practice of paying close attention to one kid at a time.
Then Orton-Gillingham. I threw myself into the training the way I throw myself into things I believe in — completely. I did the hours. I did the reading. I did the practicum with real kids in real settings, and I cried sometimes because I was watching a kid read something they had not been able to read before. It has been an amazing adventure.
Calm Creek is what comes next. It's the practice I wish more of my students had had access to — careful, whole-child, honest, and built around the kid in front of me.
Short lists have a way of making a career look like a row of diplomas. So here's what those credentials actually mean in a session: I know how to teach a kid to sound out a word, and I know how to look at a stack of test scores and tell you what's underneath them. I know what working memory looks like when it's failing a kid in real time. I know how to talk to a classroom teacher, and I know how to talk to an IEP team. I've been doing this a long time. It shows up in the room.
Independent practice means a lot of different things under a lot of different titles. Here's the plain version of what Calm Creek is, and what it isn't.
What I am. A Learning & Behavior Specialist. That's the title I use because it describes the work — deep pedagogical expertise across reading, writing, math, executive function, and the behavioral and social-emotional pieces that weave through learning. The title isn't a regulated clinical credential, and I want you to know that up front.
Being clear about these lines isn't me being cautious. It's me being honest about where my expertise starts and where other professionals pick up. The best outcomes for the kids I work with happen when each person on the team does what they do well — and when parents have a clear picture of who does what.
Start with the kid, not the diagnosis. Every kid I see is a whole person with a whole life happening at home, at school, and in their own head. A diagnosis is sometimes useful. A kid is always more than it.
Small, clear steps. I'd rather a kid master one thing and take it home than cover three things and take home nothing.
The kid sets the pace — mostly. I'll stretch a kid when I can see they're ready. I won't push them through material they aren't, just because a scope and sequence says I should.
Close attention as a method. A lot of what I do is watching. How a kid reads, how a kid writes, how a kid thinks, how a kid gets stuck. Attention is the most underrated tool in this work.
Honesty, kindly delivered. If I'm not the right person for your kid, I'll tell you. If I see something your kid's school isn't seeing, I'll tell you that, too.
The parent is not the enemy. I've seen tutors and providers treat parents like obstacles. That's not how I work. If you've found me, you're already doing the hard part.
Illustrative — an embedded map or real illustration can replace this.
Calm Creek's tutoring practice serves families in Red Wing, Minnesota and River Falls, Wisconsin — and the communities in between along the Mississippi River valley.
The online community — weekly AMAs, a resource library, group coaching — serves parents from anywhere.
A discovery call is fifteen minutes, no charge, no pressure.