We take great pride in introducing you to our
Exceptional Preschool Staff
Andrea Benkel, Director of Early Childhood Education
Andrea Benkel is a dynamic and passionate leader in the field of early childhood education. She is thrilled to be celebrating her seventh year at Summit. After graduating from the Ohio state University with a bachelor’s degree in Child Development, she and her husband moved to Arizona. Mrs. Benkel has experience teaching preschool, kindergarten and Gymboree Play/Music/Art classes for over twenty years. In 2008, she received her Master’s in Education from the University of Phoenix and was selected as the student speaker for the commencement ceremony.
Mrs. Benkel was also selected to serve as a mentor for preschool directors, through the Chase Emergent Leader’s program, a statewide early childhood education leadership institute. She has been invited to present several times at conferences for the National Association for the Education of Young Children. She is the mother of three girls, Lindsay, Samantha and Hannah and has been married to her “preschool sweetheart” Jeff for twenty five years.
Andrea.Benkel@SummitSchoolaz.org
Marie Sloane, Preschool Teacher
Marie Sloane has a BA in Psychology, a Masters of Science in Teaching, and a Certificate of Advanced Study in Early Childhood Administration. An early childhood educator for more than 25 years, Mrs. Sloane has taught preschool to third grade and been part of the administrative team for several early childhood education programs. She is an experienced presenter, consultant, and author of 11 published articles on young children, teaching young children and dimensions of early childhood. Mrs. Sloane has given over 40 presentations for teachers and parents at national, regional, local conferences and meetings. She has also developed and taught and early childhood curriculum class at Arizona State University.
Marie.Sloane@SummitSchoolaz.org
Suchi Roy, Preschool Teacher
Suchi Roy has a Bachelor of Science degree in Home Science from India and an Associate degree in General Studies from Mesa Community College. She continues to attend workshops and seminars in Early Childhood Education. Mrs. Roy has taught for the last nineteen years and this is her tenth year at Summit. Prior to teaching at Summit she worked as a Reading Instructor in preschool and a Teacher’s Assistant in second grade. Before coming to the United States, she taught kindergarten for two years in India.
Suchi.Roy@SummitSchoolaz.org
Laura Otradovec, Preschool Teacher
Laura Otradovec was born and raised in New Jersey and relocated to Chicago in 1986, where she received her degree in Early Childhood Education form the College of DuPage. She moved to Phoenix in 2002. Mrs. Otradovec has been an educator for the last thirty years, and continues to attend workshops and seminars where she enjoys gaining new information and experiences for the classroom. This is her tenth year at Summit.
Laura.Otradovec@SummitSchoolaz.org
Fredie Boudrie, Preschool Teacher
Fredie Boudrie obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Interpersonal Communication from Ohio State University. While at Ohio State, she also completed coursework in the field of Elementary Education. She began by student teaching in second grade, but learned that her true love is working with young children, which she has ben doing for the past thirteen years. She is an enthusiastic and energetic teacher with a great sense of humor and terrific communication skills. She loves storytelling and teaching kids to button and tie.
Fredie.Bourdrie@SummitSchoolaz.org
Gayle Green, Preschool Teacher
Gayle Green graduated form Arizona State University in 1988 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Education. This is her tenth year as a preschool teacher. Prior to joining the Summit staff, she taught preschool at Lil Goldman Early Learning Center in Fort Worth, Texas, and also at Temple Emanuel in Tempe, Arizona. In addition to teaching Preschool, Mrs. Green was a Sunday school teacher for sixteen years, and a Gymboree teacher for six years. Born and raised in Omaha Nebraska, she is married and has two daughters, Emily and Molly.
Gayle.Green@SummitSchoolaz.org
Lisa Stearns, Preschool Teacher
Lisa Stearns is an Arizona native. She graduated in 1997 from Dobson High, and has earned a degree in Child Development from Mesa Community College. Ms. Stearns has been teaching preschool for eleven years, and is currently continuing her education through Northern Arizona University, to earn a Bachelor of Science in Interdisciplinary Studies, with an emphasis in Speech-Language Sciences & Technology. Summit School has been her second home for nine years and she can’t imagine moving anytime soon.
Lisa.Stearns@SummitSchoolaz.org
Kathrine Utzke, Preschool Teacher
Kathrine Utzke started working with children when she was in high school, doing volunteer work at an elementary school, and her church youth programs. She knew early on that she wanted to be a teacher. After she graduated high school, her first official job was working with children with special needs in a group home setting. Wanting to pursue an education, she set off for college and that is when she landed in Tempe, AZ.
Ms. Utzke graduated from International Baptist College, earning a Bachelors degree in Elementary Education. During her college years she worked at three local preschools and realized that preschool is where her passion was. She furthered her career by becoming an Assistant Preschool Director and held the position for two years. Her love for the classroom and the desire to directly impact the lives of children brought her back to the classroom as a teacher. Throughout her teaching career she feels that every center and every co-worker has impacted her life and have helped developed her belief systems to where they are today. She is hoping to pursue her masters in Special Education with an emphasis in Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Kathrine.Utzke@SummitSchoolaz.org
Special Instructors
Art
Selene Kupper, Art Specialist - Preschool through Eighth Grade
Selene Kupper has been an art specialist at Summit School for the past five years. She develops and teaches the Vitruvius Program curriculum that serves as the art program for the school. In 2010, Ms. Kupper and her co-teacher Kathleen Kupper collaborated with the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, providing the museum over 280 art works created by Summit School of Ahwatukee students. Ms. Kupper developed and facilitated preschool through sixth grade architectural and design projects for the exhibit, titled Bridges: Connecting Earth to Sky. The Vitruvius Program was recognized by Phoenix Magazine as one of the top five education programs in Metro-Phoenix. Ms. Kupper has developed projects and taught in the Vitruvius Program at the ASU Center for Academic Precocity, Design Discovery at the ASU College of Architecture and Environmental Design, Tesseract School Paradise Valley and North Scottsdale, and the University of Wisconsin.
In 2011 the Association of Architecture Organizations (AAO) selected Summit’s innovative Vitruvius art program as the best Architecture, Art and Design school program in the United States!
Ms. Kupper studied graphic design at ASU. She has worked as a general manager, buyer, and designer for a five store corporation. As an artist and designer, her work has been exhibited internationally and she continues to create design work in the area of textiles and graphics. At Summit, she presents integrated design exercises and art principles to the students.
Selene.Kupper@SummitSchoolaz.org
Library
Martha Mriss, Library Specialist – Preschool through Fifth Grade
Martha Mriss is an Arizona native and a third generation Arizonan. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Elementary Education from Arizona State University and Master of Arts in Educational Supervision from Northern Arizona University. She has over 25 years of teaching experience with fourteen years as a library specialist and seven years of classroom teaching. She also worked as a Human Resources Coordinator for four years and one year as a reading specialist before retiring. Her love of the library helped to draw her out of retirement to be the library specialist at Summit where she expands student’s love of books by teaching a library class to preschool through fifth grade.
Martha.Mriss@SummitSchoolaz.org
Music
Jennifer Horne, Music Teacher - Preschool through Fifth Grade
Jennifer Horne was born and raised in upstate New York, about three hours northwest of New York City. She has lived and taught in various places, including London, England and Chicago, Illinois. Ms. Horne earned Bachelor and Master degrees in Music Education from the Crane School of Music at State University of New York College at Potsdam (SUNY College at Potsdam) in Potsdam, New York. She continually engages in professional development through attending conferences, reading professional books and journals, and discussing current issues and trends in music education with colleagues.
In addition to her music teaching skills, she plays flute and piano, sings, and can play a variety of concert band instruments proficiently. Her teaching experience includes teaching general, instrumental, and vocal music, mostly at the elementary and preschool level, but also at the middle/secondary level. Ms. Horne loves listening to live or recorded music, as well as reading, baking, going to museums and cultural events, watching movies, traveling, and hiking. Spending time with family and friends is also important.
Jennifer.Horne@SummitSchoolaz.org
Spanish
Elsa Conti – Spanish, Preschool through Fifth Grade
Elsa Conti called Mazatlán, México home until arriving in Phoenix in 2000. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Business from Universidad de Occidente in México, and is a native Spanish speaker. This year she plans to attend the University of Phoenix for advanced classes in Spanish, and expanding her knowledge in teaching methods involving “(TPRS) Total Physical Response System.” TPRS uses games, activities and large group projects that engage students in having fun as they learn the second language.
Throughout her eleven years teaching at Summit, Ms. Conti continues to create opportunities for children to interact and experience the Spanish language through stories, songs, poems, puppet play; always enhancing their vocabulary and their talents for a second language. Older students create videos in Spanish, research and create models and reports in English and Spanish, learning to read and write and enjoy their new found abilities.
Elsa.Conti@SummitSchoolaz.org
Faith Angelakis, Literacy Specialist – Preschool through Fourth Grade
Faith Angelakis contributes her significant experience and education to support both students and teachers in Summit’s exceptional literacy program. She works with preschool through fourth grade teachers to help them continue to develop professionally, modeling literacy lessons for teachers, or team-teaching units. She helps teachers plan literacy instruction for the year, and provides professional reading materials about the most recent teaching techniques. Through collaborative efforts with teachers, she leads the school’s literacy team to continually update and enhance our literacy program.
Using her nineteen years of teaching experience, Mrs. Angelakis also works directly with students in kindergarten through third grade classrooms, assisting grade level teachers to provide reading instruction to small groups of students, where each student is instructed at his or her individual reading level.
A graduate of Boston College with a BA in English and Philosophy, Mrs. Angelakis continued her education, earning a Masters Degree and a teaching certificate in Elementary Education at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Mrs. Angelakis began her teaching career as a classroom teacher for second, third, and fourth grades in Connecticut. This is her sixth year at Summit and fifth year as a Literacy Specialist. She has a Reading Specialist endorsement and a full Structured English Immersion endorsement. Additionally, she is CLIP (Collaborative Literacy Intervention Project) certified. Throughout her career, Mrs. Angelakis has been dedicated to her continuing education and has attended and presented at many professional development workshops.
Faith.Angelakis@SummitSchoolaz.org