2010 Afterschool Enrichment and Registration 

Greetings from Nueva Enrichment, inspiring afterschool opportunities for all grades K-8. Nueva Enrichment classes are open to the public -- we welcome all students to come and take advantage of this exciting opportunity!

Just click on your child's grade below, then hover your mouse over any class title to see a description, dates, time, and cost for that class. Click any teacher's name to see a brief bio. Please note: all classes include children from more than one grade.

Don’t forget to check out our special 5:30 Late Bus -- you can see the bus schedules and sign up here (login required). If you have questions about the bus, please This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Click here to register, or  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it if you have any questions. A minimum number of students is required for a class to be held. About a week after registration closes, you will receive a confirmation email verifying enrollment in a class, confirming location, and providing any special information. If you have any questions, please call or email: 650-350-4521 or  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Enrichment Teacher Profiles

Ariel Berman: Junior Achievement (Arielmaxine@gmail.com)
Originally from the Pacific Northwest, Ariel spent three years overseeing, managing and teaching Kindergarten through 12th grade financial literacy programs for Junior Achievement of Washington. She is passionate about making the process of learning about business and economics engaging and meaningful for all students. She has spent the last couple of years conducting educational research and has a MA degree in Cognitive Studies of Education from Teachers College, Columbia University.

BayAreaChess: Chess (Salman@bayareachess.com)
BayAreaChess is a nonprofit organization founded by educators who believe in hands-on learning. Their mission is to provide enjoyable activities that develop intellectual, mathematical, analytical, visual, and personal skills. This program rewards persistence while fostering sportsmanship. For more information, visit them on the web at www.bayareachess.com.

Cathy Foxhoven: Dance Evolution Show Choir (Iambasque@gmail.com)
Cathy Foxhoven has over 32 years of experience as a professional actor and singer in films, prime time television, soap operas and commercials. She also has experience in voiceovers, radio dramas, print work and theatre in California, Colorado, and Nevada. Cathy is currently a professor teaching in the Motion Picture and Television Department at the Academy of Arts University in San Francisco.

Chris Sams: Improv (Chris.Sams@gmail.com)
Chris Sams has served for more than five years as an improv coach and corporate trainer at BATS Improv. Chris has used applied improvisational theatre technique to train teams from Google, Facebook, Genentech, Gap, ZS Associates, and dozens of other companies. He has taught improv sessions in nearly ten Bay Area elementary, middle, and high schools, including sessions for Nueva School’s intensives week. Chris has worked with student improvisers from Stanford University and Harvard University and adults in UC Berkeley Haas School of Business. He enjoys collaborating with Palo Alto Institute on improvisation and related topics. Chris has performed improv in more than 100 live improvised shows for various troupes in his career. Recently, he directed, produced, and hosted The Blank Show at BATS Improv. Chris graduated as a Benjamin N. Duke Leadership Scholar in 1997 from Duke University.

Clare Szydlowski: Printmaking (ClareSzyd@gmail.com)
Clare Szydlowski received her MFA in the area of Printmaking from SF State and her BA in Art and Education at UC Santa Cruz. She has taught art classes at a variety of independent schools and community cooperatives: DrawBridge and Shoreline Middle School in Santa Cruz, CA and Bernal Kids Co-op, Las Mariposas Summer Camp, 826 Valencia, Convent of the Sacred Heart High School and Nueva Summer Camp in the Bay Area. Passionate about the intersections between the visual arts and other academic disciplines, she has frequently been a guest lecturer in Art Education classes at San Francisco State University.

Federico Chialvo: Discover Your Inner Mathematician, Math Detectives (FChialvo@nuevaschool.org)
Federico holds a BS in Mathematics and an MA in Education from the University of Arizona. He has a passion for sharing the rich and interconnected world of mathematics with children. Recently he has designed and instructed three Nueva Summer academies, "Game Theory", "Dollars and Sense", and "The Root of the Problem."

Jim Munzenrider: Steel Drums (Jmunzenrider@nuevaschool.org)
Jim holds a Master’s degree in Classical Percussion Performance from San Jose State University. A life-long quest in search of more instruments to hit has led him to the steel drum, the national instrument of the island nations of Trinidad and Tobago. Jim has served on the music faculty at Chabot College in Hayward since 1983. In 1988 he started the Chabot Panhandlers Steel Drum Band, a 25-piece nationally acclaimed group that has three CDs to their credit. The group performs regularly throughout California, often backing up the world’s greatest players in this art form. In addition, Jim is a founding member of Pan Ramajay, a professional six-member steel drum band that tours nationwide, performing and teaching steel drum master classes at colleges, universities, and high schools. Jim now teaches the 7th and 8th grade Elective Steel Drum Band and the Steel Drum Band Academies. Before coming to Nueva, Jim served for nine years as the music instructor at the East Bay Science and Arts Middle School in Berkeley, where he taught steel drum bands, jazz band, and African and Brazilian drumming groups.

Jonathon Polly: Local Ecology, Exploring Our Oceans (Jonathon.Polly@gmail.com)
Jonathon Polly has a M.S. in Applied Geo-Science with a focus on Oceanography. While a graduate student, he taught an Introduction to Oceanography laboratory course, was a research assistant at the Marine Biogeochemistry lab at the Romberg Tiburon Center for Environmental Studies, and also went out to sea as a research assistant collecting and slicing sediment cores for National Science Foundation-funded research aboard the R/V Point Sur. His love of the ocean isn't purely academic, however, he also enjoys swimming, scuba diving, and snorkeling in the ocean. He is currently teaching at Nueva Summer camp, and will be an Associate Teacher at Nueva this fall.

Katie Lin: Mandarin (Katieclin@gmail.com)
Katie Lin is a caring, enthusiastic, and creative teacher who has been teaching Chinese in schools for three years. She has worked with students across all grade levels, creating a fun and effective learning environment for all ages. Katie has passed the CSET (California Subject Examinations for Teachers) Single Subject Chinese credential examination. To enlarge her knowledge of Mandarin, she is currently pursuing a M.A. in Chinese at San Francisco State University . 

Luke Terra: Tree Tops (Mr.Terra@gmail.com)
Luke Terra, co-Director of the Nueva Summer program, has led low and high ropes courses for the YMCA in Kings Canyon, CA and spent three years teaching outdoor education at a K-12 school in Colorado. When he’s not playing in the trees, Luke is a doctoral student at the Stanford University School of Education where he focuses on high school civics and history instruction in post-conflict and transitioning countries.

Marisa Keller: Contortion and Flexibility (Mkeller@nuevaschool.org)
Marisa Keller is a Nueva alumna and current Nueva Associate Teacher with more than a decade of experience in the Circus Arts. Her training includes acrobatics, flying trapeze, teeterboard, and contortion. She was trained by master contortionist Serchmaa Byamba, from Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia and master Chinese acrobats from the renowned Nanjing Circus. Marisa also practices Yoga and Meditation.

The Marvegos Fine Art School: Art Exploration and Fine Art Fundamentals (Rita@marvegos.com)
The Marvegos Fine Art School is a private art school for children in Saratoga, California. The founder, Rita Young, recently published a book entitled Teaching Art to Children, The Marvegos Way, which provides parents and art educators with a roadmap to follow in assisting children to be self-confident, self-directed, independent art-makers, and to be and express who they are in their generation. The goal of this life-altering art program is to increase each child’s self-confidence as they discover and develop their own art-making style. The Marvegos Fine Art School instructors believe that exercising creativity is better with some structure, and their program is not merely free art making.

Mel Bebbington: Fresh and Healthy Cooking Series (MelsKitchen@mac.com)
Mel Bebbington is a former Nueva parent and Cordon Bleu chef. She runs Mel's Kitchen, a private cooking school for kids and adults, teaches the ever so popular culinary academy for 6th-8th graders, and is delighted to now offer after-school enrichment classes. She has worked in many London restaurants and has run her own successful catering business.

Molly Tascone and Pete Martin: Instrument Building and Sound Exploration (BigMolly@earthlink.net)
Molly Tascone is a credentialed teacher with a Master's degree in Creativity and Arts Education from San Francisco State University. For the past 15 years, she has taught extra-curricular programs that include documentary filmmaking, animation, drama, and the visual arts throughout the Bay Area, as well as at The Nueva School and Helios New School. Molly is a singer and percussionist for Eddie the Rat, a music group founded by Peter Martin, which has garnered international critical acclaim.

Pete Martin is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, and teacher with more than twenty years experience with musicians of all ages and levels. Peter's's compositions have been played by the Eclipse String Quartet, Negativland, and Semar Pegulingan gamelan ensemble among many others. He has studied musical composition and performance with luminaries such Fred Frith, Roscoe Mitchell, and William Winant.

Neha Pall: East Indian Dance (NPall@nuevaschool.org)
Neha teaches 3rd grade at Nueva. She is a candidate for a MEd from Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the creative arts in learning program, with a multicultural specialization. She grew up in Colorado, where she received a BA in theater arts and a teaching license in elementary education. She was then a teacher for four years in Aurora, Colorado, in third to fifth grades. While living in Colorado, Neha worked at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, at a Girl Scout Camp, and at a Montessori School. Since she was a child, Neha has enjoyed yoga and Western and Eastern dance, including Indian dance. She has taught East Indian dance to kids of all ages and last year mentored a Nueva 8th grader during her Bollywood recital project.

Nikolas Strubbe: Circus Tricks for Kids and Circus Daredevils (Ramshacklenikolas@gmail.com)
Nikolas Strubbe is a trained circus performer with a B.A from UC-Santa Cruz. His education in circus arts includes clowning, trapeze, juggling, unicycling, stilt walking, and fire dance. He has taught and performed circus arts to all ages, including at the Kennolyn Camps and UC-Santa Cruz, and he founded the Ramshackle Sidewalk Circus, a circus troupe that performs around the Bay Area.

The ODC School: Pre-Ballet (Kimi@odcschool.org)
The ODC is a groundbreaking arts institution with longstanding roots in the San Francisco community. They are proud to have been the first modern dance company in America to build a home facility in 1979. Since then they have opened the ODC Theater and School. The ODC School is dedicated to inclusion and to promoting the artistic lifecycle of a dancer through creative and technical training that develops artistic capacity, enthusiasm and engagement. Please take a look at the array of offerings and amazingly talented instructors at the ODC School: http://odcdance.org/school.php.

Russ Byers: Basketball (lobtime7@astound.net)
Russ Byers has been the Nueva 5th grade boy’s basketball coach for the last 2 seasons and taught several basketball and sports enrichment classes in K-4th grade. He is married with two adult daughters. Russ’s positive experiences coaching his own children’s teams has brought him back to the youth sports scene now that he has semi-retired from his clock service and sales business. He is happy to have the time to encourage and instill a love of team sports to a new group of youngsters. “My emphasis is the learning of fundamental skills and sportsmanship through fun team drills and games.”

San Francisco Fencers’ Club: Fencing (Mkhosh@sbcglobal.net)
San Francisco Fencers Club provides the Bay Area community with premier youth and adult fencing programs as well as coaching services for both competitive and recreational fencers. Currently, SFFC athletes hold some of the top fencing positions in the country and compete internationally as members of the US National Team. These young athletes are US National gold, silver, and bronze medalists, two of whom joined the Stanford and Princeton varsity fencing teams in the fall of 2007.

Tasha Bergson-Michaelson: The Great Wikipedia Clean-Up Project (Tashabm@earthlink.net)
Tasha is an independent consultant and research trainer specializing in increasing productivity and efficiency for corporations, adults, and children. She has 14 years of research experience in public relations, strategic consulting and education.

Terry Gomes: Web Programming with Javascript (TGomes@nuevaschool.org)
After graduating from college in 1981 with degrees in English and Computer Science, Terry Gomes worked as a professional software engineer, project manager and R&D director in Silicon Valley. The businesses in which he worked included: 3-D CAD (ICG); robotics (Automatix ); presentation graphics (SPC’s Harvard Graphics); personal finance & investing (Intuit); genomics and proteomics (InfoEnable); fantasy sports (Citizen Sports); and adaptive learning advertising (Teracent, which was acquired in Nov. 2009 by Google). In 2006 Terry realized a lifelong dream and became a computer science and philosophy (ethics & logic) teacher at The Bay School of San Francisco. He joined Nueva School in 2010.

Zack Wright: Exploring Electronic Music, Fun with Electronic Sounds and Music (Wrightz@gmail.com)
Zack Wright has been producing electronic music for over a decade, and has released many albums and 12" vinyl records on various internationally recognized record labels. He has performed live and has toured across the United States, Canada, and Japan. His music has appeared on and been licensed to Cartoon Network's Adult Swim, Nike ACG, Big Up Productions, VIZ Media, and Fuel TV. He is also a substitute teacher at Nueva.