Villa Faculty

The pursuit of excellence begins with our faculty and staff. At Villa Academy, we go the distance to find talented professionals who are absolutely the best at what they do. And, like our students, we encourage them to go farther, reach higher, and become even better.

Our faculty and staff members are equally dedicated to the interests of each student. They understand each one’s special talents, interests, challenges, and concerns. Through regular strategy sessions with other teachers, our faculty and staff do more than stay current with each student’s needs. They are the cornerstone of a learning process that reaches beyond the classroom to touch individual lives.

FEBRUARY 27, 2008
Second Grade Teacher Brings Endangered Species Research to Life for her Students

In the summer of 2006, Villa Academy second-grade teacher Barbara Purn received a fellowship to travel to the coast of Kenya with Earthwatch Institute and study the stress habits of Sykes monkeys in their natural environment. She spent her days finding and  following monkeys through the dense forests and meticulously recording their movements.

“My primary goal … was to find opportunities to bring my experiences back into my second grade classroom,” >>Read More

FEBRUARY 27, 2008
PHOTO GALLERY: Student project combines lessons in community, technology, and the visual arts.

FEBRUARY 27, 2008
Bringing classroom lessons to real-world issues, one student’s vision becomes community-wide priority

Petitions, letter-writing campaigns, and community meetings. All tools for solving broad community problems, and all aspects of a 2005-2006 Villa Academy 2nd grade social studies unit on communities.

After participating in a mock community meeting to “solve a problem” that had occurred in an imaginary town, the students all walked away with invaluable experience and a real understanding of some of the ways the adult-world resolves conflicts. One student, however, also walked away with a light bulb over his head and the tenacity to address a problem he had perceived within the Villa community – a problem that he followed through to its successful resolution in September 2007. >>Read More