“Based on a comprehensive, integrated understanding of the human being, a detailed account of child development, and with a curriculum and teaching practice that seeks unity of intellectual, emotional and ethical development at every point, Waldorf education deserves the attention of all concerned with education and the human future.”

~ Douglas Sloan, Ph D, Professor of Education, Teachers College, Columbia University

WSP High School Faculty and Staff

Lisa Babinet, PHD (on sabbatical this year) teaches math in the high school. Lisa received a PhD in science education from the University of Pennsylvania. She has three Master’s degrees including one in secondary math education from the University of Pennsylvaina, and one in applied psychology from the University of Santa Monica. She has taught mathematics in middle school and high school for many years. Lisa’s most recent experience has been as a math teacher, director of educational programs, and dean of students in the middle school at Crystal Springs Uplands School in Hillsborough. Her son and her daughter are students in our school.

Michaela Bergmann teaches Eurythmy in the high school. She completed a five-year training course to become a stage eurythmist and eurythmy teacher for all ages, including adults, from the Eurythmeum Stuttgart. She also has a diploma from Micheshof Hepsisau, Institute for Therapeutic Pedagogy and has studied acting and drama. Michaela has been a eurythmy teacher for 10 years, and is also experienced in working with children who have special needs using therapeutic eurythmy techniques. Michaela joined our school in 2003.

Ellen Cimino teaches history and English. Ellen graduated from the University of the South with a major in Comparative Literature and continued with graduate work in English literature at Auburn University. She completed two Master’s degrees: one in German secondary education from Middle Tennessee State University and one in International Affairs from Georgia Tech. She has taught German, English and history for many years in Atlanta, Geogia. Ellen taught a year in Germany as a Fulbright Exchange teacher and spent a summer studying Italian in Rome, Italy as a Rotary Ambassador. In July 2011 she completed her Waldorf HS teacher training at the Center for Anthroposophy in Wilton, New Hampshire.

Bob Dell’Oliver is a long-time Waldorf math, physics, cultural history, and woodworking teacher. He taught at the Chicago Waldorf High School and was a founding teacher at the Santa Cruz Waldorf High School. About his years of travel in his youth, Bob says that it always got really interesting when he let his money run out. He moved from that world of adventure into another—the raising of six children, and then another—commiting his children and himself to Waldorf education.

Mary Jane Di Piero re-joined the school as High School Coordinator in January 2007. She was a founding parent of Waldorf School of the Peninsula, was a class teacher for five years and enrollment director for two. She completed her Waldorf Teacher Training in 1998 and also has an M.A. in English and a California secondary teaching credential. She taught high school English and journalism in Maryland and Vermont, and had a teaching Fulbright in Italy. She also worked as a university press and technical editor for many years.

Jim Duport, MBA, teaches Algebra II. Jim is a math major with a lifetime secondary teaching credential. He taught math at Los Gatos High School and, after 10 years, left to work in private industry for two Fortune 500 companies. He founded a small software company, LSEMod and has also taught professional seminars in commercial real estate finance and in negotiations.

John Martin teaches physical education, is athletic director, and coaches cross country, basketball and track. John has a sport and family chiropractic practice, has taught in a chiropractic college, and is a popular running and fitness coach in the area. He has completed more than 30 marathons and has trained more than 2,000 marathon athletes. He has a B.S. in environmental studies and played competitive soccer and baseball in high school and college, as well as playing a number of other team sports.

Denise McCluskey taught several biology and chemistry main lesson blocks last year and now joins the faculty to help build the science curriculum and our school. She is dedicated to designing lessons that encourage students to experience science in a living way, to question and deepen their knowledge, and to address current scientific theoretical needs in our contemporary world. Denise has a degree in biochemistry and worked in the biotechnology industry in project management for 10 years. Prior to that, she spent time in research laboratories at UC San Diego Medical Center and volunteered in their hotline groups to support at-risk youth. She founded a Waldorf-inspired homeschool initiative, has completed her foundational Waldorf teacher training, and is now completing a masters in Waldorf education, as well as studying spatial dynamics. Indeed, her interests and education pursuits are wide-ranging and ongoing—from master’s level work in developmental psychology and multicultural studies, to hypnotherapy, neurolinguistics, and daily poetry writing. Denise has two children in the lower school.

Kelly Leahy McKeown, MA, is the high school guidance counselor, college counselor, and teacher of wellness. Kelly is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and holds a California Pupil Personnel Services Credential with a specialization in K-12 school counseling. She received her masters from St. Mary’s College with a dual emphasis in School and Marriage, Family and Child Counseling. Kelly discovered Waldorf education when one of her graduate school professors taught the temperaments and assigned a hand-written reflection paper that required page borders to be decorated with beeswax crayons. Kelly has complete the Community Learning Center Foundation Studies for Waldorf Teacher Training through Rudolf Steiner College. Prior to joining the Waldorf School of the Peninsula, she spent nine years at an independent high school, and four years at a 4th-8th grade public school. Kelly was a teacher, counselor, director of service learning programs, coordinator of health education curriculum, and facilitator of peer counseling and mediation. Kelly also researched, developed and facilitated domestic and international cultural and service immersion adventures where she gained extensive experience working with adolescents outside the classroom. She has a passion for student leadership development and has ushered many emerging leaders through the process of setting and realizing their goals.

Bobak Moghbel teaches physics and math. He was born in Iran, and, after a passionate involvement with the Iranian Revolution, left his home at 17 for Germany, where he attended high school and university. At the University of Aachen, he studied electrical engineering and earned a master’s degree with a focus on semiconductor technology. He then made his way to Silicon Valley (accompanied by a box of Rudolf Steiner books) and worked here for 7 years specializing in the design of integrated circuits. The Steiner books eventually outweighed the computer chips, and Bobak joined the San Francisco Waldorf teacher training program, where he met his wife Susannah (who teaches eurythmy in the early grades). He taught mathematics and physics at the East Bay Waldorf High School for 3 years, and then he and Susannah moved with their daughter Tara to the Mt. Shasta area where they both completed their eurythmy training at the American Eurythmy School. This training, Bobak says, brought his first immersion into poetry and music and allowed him to integrate the heady world of math and science, where he was always adept, with the world of the heart.

Deborah Newlen teaches English and drama. Before joining our faculty, Deborah taught English, drama, philosophy, psychology, and ecological literacy at the East Bay Waldorf High School. At WHSP, she teaches writing and grammar, Comedy and Tragedy, 10th grade Poetics, 10th and 12th Grade Plays, World Religions, the Transcendentalists, Ecological Literacy and Parcival (which included a solo sit for juniors in Utah canyon country). She founded the All High School Summer Reading Symposium and has been a driving inspiration behind the popular “January-term”, an interdisciplinary exploration of earth, water, air and fire.

Mark-Daniel Schmid, PHD joins the faculty as a music teacher. He received his PhD in Music History from Northwestern University, his Master of Arts from West Chester University, and a Diploma in Piano Performance from the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Stuttgart, Germany. Prior to coming to the Waldorf School of the Peninsula, he was an associate professor in music history and piano at Mansfield University in Pennsylvania, where he taught music history for nine years. He is the editor of the Richard Strauss Companion published by Praeger Publishing Group and was also a contributor to the International Dictionary of Black Musicians, published in 2001. He is also an accomplished pianist and has accompanied recitals in Germany and Switzerland as well as throughout the United States. Having taught piano to young children for many years, Dr. Schmid looks back fondly on his days as a student at the Waldorf School “Uhlandshöhe,” the very first Waldorf school, in Stuttgart, Germany, and feels that the wonderful experiences he had there destined him to become a teacher. “I can always tell when a young adult has attended a Waldorf School,” he says. “They have a certain glow about them, a deep curiosity about the world and its citizens, an open mind to new approaches, and a knowledge beyond the physical world.”

Adjunct Faculty

Jennifer Nori Ahlgrim teaches African style hand drumming and rhythm, as well as basketmaking. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Interior Architectural Design from the California College of the Arts in Oakland and San Francisco. She practiced in the architectural field for many years before moving on to raise two children. Her children have been students of the Waldorf curriculum since preschool. Jennifer has completed the High School Teacher Training program at Rudolph Steiner College and is currently enrolled in the MA program there. She is also the administrative assistant at the high school. Jennifer has been studying African style drumming, rhythm and dance for the last decade. In addition to her class at the high school, she is currently teaching drum classes to adults as well as an elective drum class to the middle school students at the Waldorf School of the Peninsula.

Leila Allen, currently high school drama teacher and admissions director at Summerfield Waldorf School in Sebastopol, teaches the 9th grade Comedy and Tragedy block in the fall and doing improvisational drama work with the students throughout the year. Leila has diplomas in speech formation and theater education from the Stuttgart School of Speech and Drama, as well as a diploma in therapeutic speech. In addition to teaching drama and directing high school plays, she has been a visiting speech formation teacher in Bay Area Waldorf schools and a therapeutic speech practitioner. She has also been instrumental in planning a number of international youth conferences.

Rich Armstrong

Dotty Calabrese

Bob Lamp

Anna Rainville

Jan Smith

Carolyn Siegel teaches clay modeling to grades 9, 10, 11; stone carving to grade 12, and also teaches Spanish grammar. She is a licensed Marriage Family Therapist (MFT) with a passion for clay. She began seriously working with clay in 2001, has taught small groups of students, and shows and sells her sculptures locally. Carolyn has been a parent at Waldorf School of the Peninsula since 1998. She has completed her Waldorf High School Teacher Training through Rudolf Steiner College and is currently enrolled in the MA program there. "I didn't think of myself as an artist until I got my hands in clay," says Carolyn. "Then the artist in me sprang to the forefront. Clay's forgiving nature is a great medium to birth the unseen but felt inner ideas and emotions into the world of the seen and expressed."