Amanda joined the faculty at Southwest Charter in Fall 2010. After being way for 22 years, Amanda returned to her hometown of Portland to raise her two boys. Amanda received her Masters Degree in Education from the Claremont Graduate School, Claremont, California in 1992. With her degree in hand she has taught in a number of small alternative schools, designed a successful children’s clothing line using recycled materials and started her own Place based school in rural Montana. Amanda believes strongly in the power of Place Based Education and getting children out from behind their desks and into active, hands-on learning! She loves children and is enthusiastic about the outdoors, her community, family, cooking and crafts.

Mike has been teaching at SW Charter School since September 2007. He comes from a family of five and both parents were also elementary teachers. Mike's degree from Western Washington University is in Ceramics and Illustration. He also studied Art History in Greece for a semester. Whenever he had a chance he traveled to see different parts of the world. Mike moved to Portland in 2005 to work for a year as a Teacher's Assistant in the Reynolds School District, finished his Master of Arts in Teaching at Lewis & Clark College and completed a year-long internship at Sunnyside Environmental School which allowed him to develop his philosophy on best practices and place-based education. Some of Mike's other passions include playing the banjo, backpacking, bicycling, sea kayaking, and anything involving the outdoors and nature. Mike believes each child has special and wonderful attributes to bring to the classroom. He is very excited and happy to be a part of Southwest Charter School!

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Monica joined our teaching staff in fall 2009. Prior to Southwest Charter School, Monica taught a second and third grade blend at Willamette Primary in West Linn. She received her Master of Arts in Teaching at Lewis & Clark College and received a degree in Biology from the University of Portland. Before getting into teaching, she explored other passions. She spent two summers in Alaska, interning for the National Park with their brown bear research team and working as a sea kayak guide. She also had an AmeriCorps position at a local non-profit, Willamette Riverkeeper. Then she landed a "real" job with the Department of Environmental Quality, organizing volunteer groups that collect water quality data. Monica soon realized that though she loved the sciences and environmental stewardship, she was not cut out to work in an office all day. She started to think about those “fun” jobs she had working with kids as a swim instructor, basketball coach, pre-school teacher, and tutor. The light went on and here she is! In addition to teaching, Monica enjoys gardening, biking, baking, kayaking, and visiting with friends.

Bre joined the SWCS team in fall 2009. After completing a Bachelor’s Degree in Music Composition & Theory at Whitman College, she pursued other interests for a few years working as a seamstress at Oregon Ballet Theater and at The Oregon Shakespeare Festival. She also spent some time as a nanny and Ultimate Frisbee coach in the Portland area. She completed her Master of Arts in Teaching at Lewis & Clark in spring 2009 and while there interned in a 1st/2nd grade classroom at Sunnyside Environmental School. In addition to teaching, Bre enjoys competing with her Ultimate Frisbee team, Schwa, as well as skiing, hiking, and gardening.

This is Christopher’s first year at SWCS.  He taught for 14 years in the North Clackamas School District, and is passionate about “facilitating learning experiences for young humans.”  Christopher graduated from Portland State University, immediately obtained his Master’s Degree in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages from Portland State University, and then went through the Graduate Teacher Education Program at PSU.  He has two amazing humans that he calls his daughters, and when not at school spends his time surfing, climbing (rock, alpine, and ice), backcountry skiing, running, skate boarding, volunteering with Portland Mountain Rescue, and creating art.

Lisa is in her fifth year of teaching at Southwest Charter School. Prior to teaching at SWCS, she worked with the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) where for four years she developed science curriculum and taught students of all ages around the state. Her love of science and exploration began back in Michigan where she and her sister would explore their neighborhood, looking for insects and tinkering in their father's work shed. That interest would take her to study at the University of Michigan where she discovered she had a talent for teaching and received a Bachelor of Arts in Education with High Distinction. She has taught in a variety of educational settings from large group assemblies, which encouraged a love of theater, to small group classrooms, where she can give individualized attention. Her strong science background is accented by a passion for storytelling, folklore & mythology from around the world. Inspired by those tales, she creates visual art, plays with the Stumptown Jugthumpers as a washboard player, and is learning how to make puppets. Lisa brings her enthusiasm and talents to share and loves discovering and honing the talents and skills of each of her students.

Cris Davis is our 5^th/6^th Social Studies and Language Arts teacher. After growing up in the shadow of Mt. Ranier, Cris moved to Portland in 2000 to attend college in the shadow of Mt. Hood. Studying French and Spanish gave Cris a great excuse to travel, and he studied in Spain and Senegal before graduating in 2004 with a BA in Foreign Language from Lewis and Clark College. Cris decided to become a “for real” teacher while working at the Portland French School as an Assistant Teacher, but not before moving to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to teach English and volunteer in orphanages. In 2011 Cris received a Masters in Teaching from Concordia University. He worked as a substitute teacher in Portland and Beaverton before joining the Southwest Charter School staff in 2012. In his free time, Cris plays indoor soccer and futsal, cares for his garden and chickens, and volunteers with Big Brothers Big Sisters.

Sarah Anderson, our 7th/8th teacher specializing in language arts and social studies, was originally lured to Oregon by its waterfalls. She spent most of her childhood exploring rivers and forests near her rural Vermont home- experiences which provided inspiration for a passion for nature and all things wild. After graduating with a degree in American Studies from Bard College in New York, Sarah served as an AmeriCorps volunteer for Metro Parks and Greenspaces in Portland. Since then, she has worked as a crew leader at an educational farm in Vermont, a Teacher Naturalist in the California Redwoods and a Middle School Humanities teacher at The Key School in Annapolis, Maryland. Sarah received a Masters of Education from Antioch New England Graduate School, where she specialized in integrated and place-based education. In addition to exploring the local neighborhoods and environs with her zany middle schoolers, Sarah enjoys knitting, hiking, pickling, reading good books, and climbing waterfalls.

Paul Banta joined the Southwest Charter staff team in fall 2010. Since childhood, Paul longed for open and wild spaces to explore. Ten years ago, he answered Oregon’s call. He spent the better part of three years living outdoors mentoring at-risk youth as he taught them life skills, and survival skills in the high desert. Hiking the Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada was a time of reflection and rite of passage. Afterward, Paul decided to devote his life to education. Since then, he has earned his M. Ed. from PSU, spent years volunteering for the Friends of Tryon Creek, and worked as a State Park Naturalist and Interpreter. This past year, he substituted in various small charter schools around Portland, and further fostered his passion for ethnobotany and animal tracking.