Teachers & Staff
Jennifer Davey - Director
Ms. Davey graduated from the University of Bradford, U.K. with a BS in Social Sciences. She spent the earlier years of her career in hotel and catering and trained with Thistle Hotels, Edinburgh. Following the birth of her first child in 1987 she discovered Montessori and completed the preprimary training with the St. Nicholas Training Center in London. In 1991 she relocated with her family to Plano where she began her first teaching position in a preprimary class. Five years later she was invited to become the Director of Montessori New Beginnings in Plano a position she held for six years before moving to RMS in July 2001. Ms. Davey has also taken the St. Nicholas training at the elementary level. She is the mother of two teenagers, Sarah who is 21 and Christian who is 19. They both attended Montessori school. Her hobbies include walking, listening to music and gardening and she finds time to continue her studies at the Cathedral Center for Ministry Formation. Ms. Davey recent married Joseph Kaski, a member of the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer.
Mindy Butler-Hunsinger - Administrative Assistant
Mrs. Butler-Hunsinger is one of the newest additions to the RMS staff. Prior to joining the school in February 2008, she attended the University of North Texas for Journalism. She is a Texas native, but as a child was fortunate to travel all over the States with her family. She enjoys getting to know the families at RMS and is always ready to listen to the children talk about their new experiences. Her hobbies include literature, live music, documentaries, comedy, traveling and cooking with her husband.
Cheryl Thompson - Preprimary Teacher
Ms. Cheryl received an Associate’s degree at Del Mar College in Corpus Christi, Texas in 1985. She continued to take additional hours at North Lake College and UT Arlington. She spent the earlier years of her career in the restaurant business as a server and in mid management. She became interested in Montessori after becoming a member at the Church of the Redeemer and her son became a student at RMS. She completed the AMS Montessori training course at Dallas Montessori Academy in 2003. This year will be her tenth year with RMS. In 1999, she began working as an assistant teacher in Ms. Reniee’s classroom and later moved to her own classroom in 2005. Ms. Cheryl has been married for 23 years and has two children; Byron aged 15 and Hannah aged 12. Both of her children attended RMS though the second grade and now attend Irving schools. Her husband Bill teaches at Ursuline Academy Dallas and has served as Senior Warden for the Church and School Board. Both Cheryl and Bill have taught Sunday School and Children’s Chapel for the Church of the Redeemer.
Marcy Suzuki - Preprimary Teacher
Ms. Marcy is a native of Mexico. The ninth child in a family of ten, Ms. Marcy presently lives in Flower Mound with her husband of 25 years Jimmy Suzuki, her son Joji (22) and her daughter Patricia (16). As a young child she was very interested in foreign languages. She attended Our Lady of the Lake University to study English as a second language. Following college she was married and relocated to Tokyo, Japan where she lived for four years. She attended Takushoku University to study the Japanese language. Ms. Marcy has experience working in the hotel, tourism and retail industry, but teaching has always been her passion. She completed the AMS training with the Dallas Montessori Teacher Education Program. Her hobbies include golf, tennis, and walking. She loves jazz music and especially reading. Ms. Marcy, having always had the misfortune of stage fright, has taken on her fears and joined a Japanese choir.
Thrity Bharucha - Assistant Preprimary Teacher
Thrity has been a Montessori teacher for over five years and is currently an Assistant Teacher in Ms. Marcy’s classroom. Thrity grew up in Pakistan and moved to Houston for her undergraduate education. Thrity earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Information Systems Technology from the University of Houston. Upon graduation, her passion for education and children lead her to the Houston Montessori Center—one of the country’s leading Montessori institutes—where she received a Montessori Teacher Certification in Early Childhood Education. Before and during her training, she taught at Sugar Creek Montessori as an Assistant Teacher and then Intern. Upon receiving her certification, Thrity was promoted to Lead Teacher and taught a classroom of 3-6 year olds. A year later, she was awarded the school’s annual Most Dedicated Teacher Award. Two years ago, Thrity got married and moved to Cambridge, MA where her husband Eric attended graduate school. She then joined Cambridge Montessori School where she served as an Assistant Teacher for 3-6 year olds. Thrity is fluent in Gujarati, Hindi, Urdu and English.
Lakmalie de Soyza - Preprimary Teacher
Ms. Laki holds a two year AMI (Association Montessori Internationale) teaching diploma. She initiated her teaching career in Sri Lanka and worked for Belvoir College International and Colombo International School for a period of three years before moving to the States. She worked at Las Colinas Montessori School for a year before joining RMS in 1998.
Neeraja Peramanki - Assistant Preprimary Teacher
Ms. Neeraja graduated from S V University in Andhra Pradesh, India with a Bachelor’s degree in Commerce. She became interested in teaching as a profession because of the opportunity it affords to contribute to society and to make a difference in the world. Her first teaching experience was at the Shanti Nikethan Academy in Nagpur.
Neeraja came to the U.S. in 2000. Her teaching experiences led her to Montessori and she took the AMS training with the Dallas Montessori Teachers Center. She graduated in July 2007. This is Neeraja’s second year with RMS. In her spare time Neeraja enjoys gardening, singing and visiting new places.
Padmini Raghu - Preprimary Teacher
Ms. Padmini immigrated to the United States from India in 1995 to pursue higher education. She worked as Research Assistant in the Department of Journalism at Texas Christian University, Fort Worth. After graduating with an M.S., she worked as a Technical Writer. She was interested in Montessori education after she enrolled her daughter Tanya at RMS. Ms. Padmini completed the AMS teacher training course while interning at RMS. She joined the school as an assistant teacher in 2005. Her interests are reading and watching movies.
Myra Jacobson - Assistant Preprimary Teacher
Ms. Myra has been teaching and assisting children for the past 27 years. Before coming to RMS, she taught at several schools across the country and also at the Instituto Nacional Mexicano, Madero in Puebla, Mexico. Making her home in Irving with her husband Daniel and three cats, she has been part of RMS for the last 22 years. In addition to her teaching duties she also leads the After School Care.
In her spare time she is a Sunday School teacher for Irving Bible Church, where she takes time to sing in the choir. Her hobbies are movie-going, swimming, dancing, traveling, and listening to music.
Irene (Reniee) Hooper - Preprimary Teacher
Ms. Reniee discovered Montessori in 1970 when her first child attended Creative Learning Center in Dallas. Inspired by the Montessori Method and following in her mother’s footsteps, she began a career there as a teacher’s assistant.
Ms. Reniee completed the AMS Montessori preprimary training through the Dallas Academy in 1985 and began teaching at RMS. She had the pleasure of working alongside her mother, Iris Grimalde, who taught Preprimary as well as Spanish at RMS for twelve years. Ms. Reniee’s two older children graduated from RMS.
Ms. Reniee enjoys all types of music, dancing, singing in her church choir, babysitting her two grandchildren, reading and traveling every chance she can get!
Judith Arrieta - Assistant Preprimary Teacher
Ms. Judith was born in Colombia. She was educated at the Politecnico Grancolombiano in Colombia where she studied administrative systems. It was a friend who first introduced her to Montessori; she was intrigued by the method of education and began the AMS training with the Dallas Montessori Academy. She completed the training in June 2007 and has been at Redeemer for three years.
Judith is married and has two children, Sasha who is a high school senior and Alejandro who is in second grade. She enjoys cooking, jazz, reading, yoga, spending time with her family and a good cup of coffee!
Patricia Bulgarelli - Upper Elementary Teacher
Ms. Bulgarelli graduated from the University of Santo Amaro Brazil with a BS in Physical Education. She started her career working as an Aerobics and Personal Training Instructor. After moving to Dallas in 1994, she taught tumbling and tap for children, which led into her teaching career. Up until 2004, she worked in private schools with children aged 4-9 using her Physical Education skills as one of the tools in the process of teaching. She supplemented her education with Continuing Education Classes.
Ms. Bulgarelli joined RMS in 2005 as the assistant elementary teacher, but later in the school year moved to assist in a preprimary class. She has taken the AMS preprimary and elementary training.
Ms. Bulgarelli is herself a Montessori student, having attended Montessori school in Brazil up to middle school. She is the mother of two girls, Mariana who is 11 and Julia who is 6 and attends RMS. Her hobbies include jogging, reading, painting, and playing with her children.
Sangeeta Bhatia - Lower Elementary Teacher
Sangeeta Bhatia graduated from Sukhadia University, India with a Bachelor’s degree in Arts. After getting married, she moved to Dallas where she pursued a career in teaching. She took her AMS Montessori Elementary training in 2004-2005. Sangeeta joined RMS as an intern in 2005. She had a year off to have her beautiful daughter “Mahi” and returned to RMS in 2008. She enjoys cooking and spending time with her family and friends.
Eman Khan – Assistant Lower Elementary Teacher
Mr. Khan graduated from Long Island University in 2002 with a bachelor’s degree in Media Arts and a minor in film studies. After graduation he worked in New York for several years on multiple feature films as well as in television where he co-produced an award winning show called Finding My America which aired on ImaginAsian TV in December, 2006. His passion is writing for the screen for which he has written two feature length and several short films.
After moving back to Dallas he became interested in Montessori schooling and began his training for lower elementary at Dallas Montessori Academy. He began working at Redeemer Montessori in August 2008 and is looking forward to completing training in mid-2010 and beginning his career as a lower elementary Montessori teacher at Redeemer.