Meet Our Faculty
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Thom Schaefer
Thom Schaefer, Credo's Education Director, previously served as Pedagogical Dean of Faculty at the Shining Mountain Waldorf School in Boulder, CO, where he also taught high school humanities and movement. He has a strong background in both teaching and administration in public and Waldorf schools, including 16 years in Waldorf high school. Thom brings experience and expertise in designing and delivering professional development programs for teachers and administrators; developing curricular materials and programs; and coaching teachers and mentors. His degrees and credentials include a BA and teaching credential from the University of California at Santa Cruz, Waldorf Teacher Certification from Rudolf Steiner College, certification as a movement specialist in Special Dynamics, and a Master’s Degree in Waldorf Education from Tuoro University. Thom spent two years as Curriculum Consultant to Credo’s Development Team before becoming the Education Director. |
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Tanya Boone-Alva
Tanya Boone-Alva, Credo music and art teacher, directs the Credo Choir and teaches printmaking. Tanya earned her BA in Art and her teaching credential from Humboldt State University and has been teaching for 22 years. She has eight years of experience in teaching and directing choral music, currently at the Waldorf-inspired Live Oak Charter School, and previously at various public schools in Marin and Sonoma Counties. Tanya has also taught high school art and math and has worked as a Resource Specialist and Special Ed Aide. |
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Maria Bragoiner
Maria Bragoiner, Credo English and Theater teacher, holds a BA in English and Theater, an MS in Educational Administration, and is currently working on an MA in Human Development. She also holds California single subject and administrative credentials. She has taught at both public and private high schools in the past. Maria earned her Waldorf teaching certificate at the Center for Educational Renewal. She is the mother of two Waldorf students. |
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Dawn Dover
Dawn Dover directs the Credo Orchestra. She earned her BA degree in Music from the University of California Santa Barbara and studied advanced chamber music for many years in various venues. Dawn began specializing in the violin at age nine. She currently serves a conductor for the Santa Rosa Symphony’s Young People’s Chamber Orchestra and as Chamber Music Coach at Santa Rosa Junior College. Dawn has played with the San Francisco Symphony, the New Century Chamber Orchestra and has toured with the Henry Mancini and Percy Faith Orchestras and toured as concertmaster for Broadway productions. Dawn currently records albums and motion picture soundtracks with Lucasfilms’ Skywalker Symphony and has also recorded scores for other motions pictures, documentaries and television projects. She has taught privately in the San Francisco Symphony Aims program, the Marin Youth Orchestra, San Domenico School, and on occasion at Marin Academy and Marin Waldorf School. |
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Vanessa Eyen
Vanessa Eyen, Personal Sustainability teacher, earned her BA in Psychology and Masters in Outdoor Recreation from Ohio University. After 10 years of teaching as an outdoor educator and wilderness guide, she received her Masters in Community Counseling from Sonoma State University. She has worked as a counselor with West County Community Services, Support Our Students counseling clinic, and five local elementary schools. Her training as a vision quest guide with Rites of Passage, Inc. led to her guiding wilderness rites of passage programs for three local high schools. In addition to teaching at Credo, Ms. Eyen is now also a counselor at Summerfield Waldorf High School, a vision quest guide with Earthways and Wilderness Reflections, and the founder of The Earth Camp Collective and The Center for Nature Based Mentoring. |
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Eddie Guthman
Eddie Guthman directs Credo's American Music Program. Eddie is a lifelong musician who earned his BA in Music and his MA in Education at Sonoma State University, where he is currently completing his teaching credential. He also studied at the Berklee School of Music program in Perugia, Italy. Eddie has served on the faculty of Summerfield Waldorf School for five years, teaching Strings, Beginning Orchestra and American Music; he has also served as conductor for high school musicals. Eddie spent 17 years at the renowned Happy Valley School in Ojai, California, where he served as Music Director and Chair of the Fine Arts Department, and for two years at the Waldorf school in Trento, Italy. He is a member of several performing ensembles, has composed music for television, and recorded several albums and toured extensively. Eddie plays double bass, cello, guitar, mandolin, cittern, piano and violin. |
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Bob Harrington
Bob Harrington, Credo social studies and art teacher, has been teaching in Waldorf schools since 2004. He earned his BA in History from UC Santa Cruz and his MA in International Affairs / Anthropology from Ohio University. Bob also earned his teaching credentials from Dominican University. Additionally, Bob has studied at Estavos Lorand University in Budapest, Hungary and at Lomonosov University in Moscow, Russa. Prior to Waldorf teaching, Bob taught at Ohio University, the University of West Virginia and at Bung Hatta University in Indonesia. He is a writer, artist, and baseball player. |
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John Hinkle
John Hinkle has been teaching eurythmy for over ten years, and has a special affinity for teaching high school students. He did his eurythmy training at the American Eurythmy School and completed his Waldorf High School Teacher Training at the Center for Anthroposophy. For four years, John was a faculty member at Hazel Wolf High School in Seattle, Washington, and he has taught eurythmy in the Bay Area for the last six years at East Bay Waldorf School, Marin Waldorf School and Waldorf School of the Peninsula. He also directs Rose Eurythmy, a Bay Area teen eurythmy group. Prior to his interest in eurythmy, John studied audio engineering at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. |
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Ben Lev
Ben Lev, Credo Spanish teacher, has taught every grade from K – 10 and adults, including seven years as a bilingual kindergarten teacher, which prepared him to teach teens in a joyful and active way. He earned his Spanish teaching credential in 2007 and his Masters degree in Spanish from the University of Salamanca, Spain in 2009. He teaches Spanish with stories using an engaging method called TPRS. He teaches story-based Spanish at Summerfield Waldorf High School and also to adults. He lives in a co-housing neighborhood in Sebastopol with his family and pets, including Angus, the always-hungry terrier. |
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Owen Massey-Todd
Owen, Credo's Practical Skills instructor and on-site maintenance person has been involved in teaching for years. He worked at Sun Ridge Charter School in Sebastopol, and at Summerfield Waldorf School as a volunteer. He has trained many young people to properly use tools and helped them repair or build everything from bicycle tires to catapults to sprinkler systems. Owen has coached youth and school basketball and baseball teams for twelve years and currently coaches the Summerfield High School girls basketball team. He has a degree in Industrial Engineering from General Motors Institute in Flint, Michigan, and he has worked in factories building automobiles and trucks. He has also worked in the pharmaceutical industry for a cutting-edge research based company in Palo Alto, California. Neither the high school nor the college Owen attended had any fine art, drama or music classes; and he finds the curriculum at Credo so broad and exciting that he'd like to be fourteen so he could do it all over again. |
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Kelley McNeal
Kelley McNeal, Credo farming and gardening teacher, earned her BA and teaching credential at Cal State Long Beach, and for years was owner/manager of an organic family farm in Sebastopol. She currently teaches at Sebastopol Independent Charter School and previously taught at UC Irvine and in the Capistrano School District. Kelley organized and taught farm programs and nature awareness programs for K-12 students in Sonoma County schools. She will work closely with Green String Farm in Petaluma and study with Bob Cannard in the Green String Institute. |
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Jason Murphy
Jason Murphy, Credo math and media arts teacher, earned his BA in Math and his teaching credential from Sonoma State University, and he is currently completing his Waldorf Teacher Certification at the Bay Area Center for Waldorf Teacher Training. He has experience teaching in new charter high schools, at the Marin School of Arts and Technology and Metro Arts and Tech High School in San Francisco. Jason has also taught math at the College of Marin, Santa Rosa Junior College and at the middle school level. He wanted to be a teacher since childhood, discovered Waldorf education while living in Germany as a young man, and looks forward to merging his interests in math, Waldorf education and start-up high schools at Credo. |
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Margo Norman
Margo Norman, Credo's Academic Mentor, received her B.A. from U.C. Santa Barbara and her Multiple Subject Teaching Credential, Learning Handicapped and Severely Handicapped Teaching Credentials, and MA in Special Education from Sonoma State University. For many years, she taught a first through sixth grade Learning Handicapped class at Kawana School in Santa Rosa. Other teaching positions included adults with autism and in-home parent coaching. Most recently, she worked in the area of adult literacy. Margo is a mother of four children who attended Summerfield Waldorf School in Santa Rosa. |
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Tiffany Roberts
Tiffany Roberts, Credo science and PE teacher, has been teaching high school science since 1997 in mainstream public schools, in charter schools and in a Waldorf high school. Tiffany earned her BS in Biology with an emphasis in Education from San Diego State and her teaching credentials from Chapman University. She has taught biology, chemistry, earth science, environmental science, farming and PE, and she has coached softball and volleyball. Tiffany has studied biomimicry and has a particular interest in applying it to the high school curriculum. She has also designed and led student travel in other cultures and has served for two years as Adventure Learning Manager on Credo’s Development Team. |
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Julian Shaw
Julian Shaw, Credo physics and blacksmithing teacher, grew up in England, where he earned his BS in Chemistry from the University of Exeter and his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the University of Bradford. He spent four years as a post-doctoral research fellow at King’s College, London, focusing on methods and applications of magnetic resonance, then moved to San Diego, where he worked as a physicist in private industry, developing magnetic methods and devices for the detection of contraband and explosives in concealed locations. In 1995, Julian moved to Sebastopol to pursue his lifelong love of craft as a blacksmith and wood turner, and in 2004 he inaugurated the green woodworking program at Sebastopol Independent Charter School, which he continues to teach. He began studying the work of Rudolf Steiner and has spent recent summers working at Rudolf Steiner College’s Craft Conference. Julian is enrolled in a teacher credentialing program. |
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Becky Soler
Becky Soler, accompanist for Credo's choir and eurythmy classes, is a lifelong pianist who earned her BA in Applied Music at Sonoma State University. She has taught piano lessons for several years and serves a church pianist and is a founding member of the Women’s Chorus Ensemble at Sonoma State. |
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Dave Yacubian
Dave Yacubian, director of Credo's Adventure Learning program, is a teacher of outdoor skills, leadership, and wilderness medicine and a certified instructor of first aid, CPR, Wilderness First Aid and Wilderness First Responder courses. He is a lead instructor at the Wilderness Medicine Institute of the National Outdoor Leadership School, and is owner of Tam Training and Consulting, which creates emergency response and crisis management plans for organizations and programs. Dave served as Interim Associate Director of the Headlands Institute and as Director of Human Resources and Management at the Yosemite National Institute. He earned his BA in History at West Virginia Wesleyan University and his outdoor education at the National Outdoor Leadership School. At Credo, Dave plans and leads Adventure Learning trips and teaches First Aid and CPR as part of the ninth grade Anatomy and Physiology course. |