Elizabeth found her calling in education after teaching in the South Bronx as part of Teach For America. She has been teaching in both public and independent progressive schools since 1994. As an educator, Elizabeth enjoys developing social studies and science core curriculum integrating all subject areas. She is an active member of the Azuquita Student Group made up of Latinx students and faculty. Elizabeth enjoys spending time with her family at various NYC museums, traveling to visit relatives in California and Mexico, and baking.

Growing up on the Lower East Side, Tasha enjoyed participating and volunteering in community programs and visiting the mom and pop shops in the neighborhood. Tasha still remembers the second grade teacher she had in elementary school. She has fond memories of her teacher sending home books for her with stickers when she was home for weeks with the chicken pox. As she grew up, she began to work in settings that allowed her to learn more about children, diversity topics and education. As a teen, she worked as an assistant at Kirkus Reviews and later, as the years progressed, she began working as a volunteer, a tutor and teacher in the Grace Opportunity Project (GO Project). Tasha worked in a variety of independent school settings as an assistant teacher before joining LREI in 2000 as a second grade head teacher. During her time at LREI, she co-chaired the Faculty Multicultural Committee for several years. Eighteen years later, she continues to enjoy making new discoveries while exploring New York City with the second graders. When she is not teaching, Tasha looks forward to spending time with her husband, Luis and sons, LJ (Luis Jr.), and Emilio. She also enjoys bicycling, Skee ball, exploring community gardens, and looking for new and exciting children’s literature.

Graduate school brought Deborah to New York City twenty seven years ago, and she has been living, teaching, learning, and raising a family here ever since. Through the years she has enjoyed teaching in a variety of settings: upper school art history, middle school studio art, preschool, and most recently fourth grade. Once her second child came along, Deborah stepped outside of her role as a classroom teacher and spent time running a cooperative preschool, working in a soup kitchen, and participating in a parent-run committee at Brooklyn’s PS 321 that brings writers and illustrators into public school classrooms. She also embarked upon a jewelry making adventure in the tower of Riverside Church with an amazing group of older women, some in their 80s and 90s, who have been making art together for more than three decades. Deborah joined the LREI community in the fall of 2010 and thoroughly enjoys building curriculum with fourth graders. When not in the classroom or on city adventures with her students, Deborah likes to make art in her basement with her two boys, kayak in Jamaica Bay with her husband, and peddle throughout the city, happily taking advantage of the expanding bike lanes of New York.