Carly has been working with young children for over 15 years. Since 2007, she has been inspired by the Reggio Emilia approach and embraces this approach both in the classroom as well as in her life outside of school. With a master’s degree in children’s literature and bachelor’s degree in early childhood education. Reading, writing, and storytelling with children are especially close to her heart. She also loves traveling the world and learning from new experiences outside of her comfort zone. Recently, she joined a study tour with Bank Street to see the schools in Morocco. Apart from learning alongside and being inspired by children, Carly enjoys creating art, writing, and volunteering with and for her neighbors in our diverse community.

​Lauren is entering her fifth year teaching preschool and pre-kindergarten. She moved to Boston after completing her master's degree in early childhood education from The University of Hartford with a concentration in Early Literacy.  In Boston, she taught at Harvard Affiliate school where she received extensive professional development on social-emotional development and anti-bias education. She has enjoyed expanding her experience around the Reggio Emilia approach at CNS, creating a safe and inspiring community for students to learn and grow! Outside of the classroom, she enjoys cooking, baking, and traveling as well as spending time with her family and dog, Teddy.

​Jennipher Ray is one of the original founders of Charlestown Nursery School. In addition to sending her daughter, she served as both president and co-director at the school. She brings extensive experience in the “CNS approach”. Her background is as an HR manager at PWC and has been a leader and volunteer in various non-profit organizations. Most recently, she tutored recent immigrants as Write Boston at Boston International Academy. Last year, she joined the Riverway cohort and now, will join Olmsted.

Valerie enters her fourth year at Charlestown Nursery School. She joined our community from an apprentice program at Shady Hill School. In addition to her teaching experience, she has a degree in architecture from the College of Environmental Design at the University of California. She enthusiastically embraces the Reggio Approach principle of the Environment as the Third Teacher.  Valerie brings over a decade of experience as a designer into the classroom, which shares the teaching practices of careful observation, deep listening, and connection-building. She is inspired by the children-- their ideas and their resilience-- and looks forward, each year, to building relationships together while working on collaborative, artful projects. Valerie was grateful to attend the 2019 Boulder Journey School conference, "Contemporary Conversations Surrounding Early Childhood Education", which provided an opportunity to exchange ideas with educators from around the country and the world and gain new insights of the Reggio Approach. Recently, Valerie collaborated with Julia Soyer on a breakout session at the 2019 BARIN conference, "What ALL children Deserve: Dialogue on the Rights of Children", sharing the story of Esplanade’s year-long food truck inquiry as a lens to view the rights of children to be active agents in learning. Valerie lives in Cambridge and enjoys an active lifestyle within her neighborhood. Outside of school, she loves art and making things, dancing and playing volleyball, nature walks, and volunteering for various initiatives. Environmentally conscious, she is a committed bicycle commuter.

Julia has been working with children for over 16 years, most of those years as an early childhood teacher. She holds a MEd in elementary education from the University of Massachusetts, Boston, a MA in theater history from Tufts University, and a BA in theater studies from Wellesley College. Julia has explored and been inspired by the Reggio Emilia approach for a number of years. She is especially drawn to Reggio’s focus on relationship, discovery, and the classroom as a collaborative and joyous learning community. The chance to attend the 2019 Boulder Journey School conference, Contemporary Conversations Surrounding Early Childhood Education, offered an opportunity to meet with educators from around the country and the world and to gain new inspiration from the Reggio Approach and the work of David and Frances Hawkins. Most recently, Julia was excited to collaborate with Valerie Fontana Shulman on a breakout session at the 2019 BARIN conference, What ALL children Deserve: Dialogue on the Rights of Children. Their session focused on the right of children to be agents in their learning and drew on a year-long food truck inquiry. Outside of school, Julia enjoys sewing, learning Mandarin and Spanish, reading, and spending time with friends and family.

Jessica has worked in early childhood education for over a decade in a variety of formal and informal settings, public, charter, and private schools, as well as in museums. This is her third year teaching preschool at CNS. She studied Arts in Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, English at Boston College, art at the New York Studio School, and participated in a study tour of the municipal preschools in Reggio Emilia, Italy. In addition to teaching at CNS, Jessica works as a consultant specializing in arts-based learning, classroom environments, and documentation, and has presented about place-based education to educators from all over the world.

Lise has been teaching at schools in the Boston area for 15 years. She has a MS in child development from Wheelock College and a BA in English from the University of Colorado in Boulder. Lise has been studying the Reggio Emilia approach since 2000 through coursework, trainings, study groups, and conferences. She spent 8 years as a teacher-researcher at Harvard’s Peabody Terrace Children’s Center, working with her colleagues to transform the center into a Reggio-inspired school. Lise is particularly interested in how children develop relationships with materials and how children’s questions inspire learning. With Stephanie, she went on a study tour to Reggio Emilia and has served as a guide for visiting educators at CNS. She also teaches educators at the university level as part of the Lesley-Bunker Hill collaborative, coaches at the Epiphany Early Learning Center, and facilitates workshops for educators. Recently, Lise has been studying nature-based early childhood education and focusing on how to foster a relationship with nature among young children in an urban environment. Away from the classroom, Lise enjoys producing theater with children,  reading, and spending time outside with her family.