JENNIFER KOSKI

Director/Master Teacher

My name is Jennifer Koski and this will be my nineteenth year at Bonny Doon Community Preschool. Over the course of my time with BDCP I have enjoyed both administrating and teaching in the program. In May 2006, I earned a Bachelors degree with honors in Child Development at Mills College in Oakland. Professionally I have worked both as a business manager for over a decade for Kinko's Inc. and with children as a nanny in Germany and Italy and a preschool teacher in the States. In 2009 I was honored and privileged to become a California Mentor teacher. This distinction enables me to provide a site to students studying ECE at Cabrillo to complete their practicum at our school, under my tutelage. Prior to my time at BDCP, I spent a year teaching at Rising Star Montessori in Alameda, CA. My husband Darius and I live in Santa Cruz with our two sons Matias (age 24) and Jack (age 21).

I have spent many happy hours observing young children and have learned a great deal about how they learn social, emotional and academic skills through the play process. I have come to understand how effectively children learn when they are given the chance to explore quality curriculum at their own pace and in their own unique style. I also learned about the need for teachers to understand each child's boundaries and limits in order to ensure both his or her emotional and physical safety. I am a firm believer in guiding children toward confident problem solving; giving them the tools to learn self-control.

I have always found working with young children is a perfect fit for me and I am really enjoy working with the children in Bonny Doon.

MAX HOFF

LEAD TEACHER

Hi, I’m Max Hoff, and I am thrilled to be starting my eleventh year as a classroom teacher at Bonny Doon Community Preschool. I began working with young children more than thirty years ago as an environmental education intern—first at Hidden Villa in Los Altos Hills, and then at Camp Joy in Boulder Creek.

In 2009 I began taking ECE courses online with the intention of becoming a preschool classroom teacher, and in 2009 I was a student teacher at the Cabrillo College Children’s Center. I worked as an aide at the Santa Cruz Toddler Care Center for almost a year before my first classroom teaching position at the Children’s Center of San Lorenzo Valley, where I worked from April 2010 to May 2012. I was excited to be offered the teaching position at Bonny Doon Preschool in May 2012 and have been very happy here since then.

I have a lifelong passion for music, language, and the creative arts, and I feel that the preschool classroom is the perfect setting for me to share and explore these interests in a way that is beneficial to the community and the world. I like to think of the classroom as the world in miniature, and as a teacher I seek to model the kind of pro-social behavior that I would like to see more of in the world.

I have two young children, Livvy (8) and Izzy (5), who are BDCP graduates and now attend Bonny Doon Elementary. I am also a musician and I love to practice and play sax and drums among other things. I am happy and honored to have the opportunity to teach and care for children at Bonny Doon Preschool.

LAURA CARELLI

TEACHER

Hello families!  My name is Laura Carelli. I am from Oakland originally with an eclectic background that has led me to Bonny Doon Community Preschool.  I am so happy to have been welcomed into this special school and look forward to getting to know all of you this school year! 

My work life has always been in education, starting as a swim instructor and camp counselor as a teenager.  I was part of a work exchange program at a boarding school for the deaf and hard of hearing in Vermont after high school.  

I studied visual arts and studio practices at The Evergreen State College, and my own work as an artist is based in process, experimentation and play.  I am always excited to incorporate opportunities for artistic expression into my work with children.  

After receiving my BA, I worked for the better part of a decade as an Intervention Specialist for Oakland Unified School District in a preschool classroom for children with Moderate-Severe Autism.  

I am a certified 500 hour Yoga Alliance Instructor and love to bring body awareness and movement into my work with children.  I support children in emotional awareness and healthy conflict resolution skill building, as well as empowering children through foundational principles of empathy, compassion, emotional intelligence and boundary communication.  

In 2017 I had the opportunity to train and work as a director in the Timbernook program- a play-based nature program for young children- before transitioning to working for a nomadic, non-profit outdoor education program for homeschool families based in the Silicon Valley, South Bay, and Santa Cruz.  I taught as an outdoor educator as well as holding the roles of registrar, program coordinator, and finally being asked to step into the leadership role of co-director in charge of programs until we were forced to close due to covid.  I love to facilitate relationship building to the natural world in my work with children.

My work life has taken me on many tangents and I am certainly an experiential learner.  What solidified for me during the pandemic was my desire to teach preschool children again as this work is a perfect fit for me.  

I am passionate about providing opportunities for free play and exploration to young children, as well as diverse experiences with creative, expressive and immersive practices such as process-oriented art, nature awareness, and yoga/movement/embodiment as a way to orient a child’s sense of self to their relationship with peers, environment, community and world. 

Outside of work, I love to hike and camp, spend time on the beach and in nature, create art and hang out with my cat, Peat.  I feel so grateful to call this community home and to live and work in such a beautiful place with such a great group of people!