The Team
Siri Fiske
Siri is the founder and Head of Mysa School. Siri is passionate about education reform and creating learning environments that focus on the learner. A strong advocate for experiential learning, Siri has traveled the world with groups of students experiencing with them first hand the lives of others. She has taught science and math. She has designed, launched, and nourished many programs in public schools, including arts and music programs that currently reach thousands of students in the Los Angeles area. Her most recent job before moving to Washington, DC was helping to design and launch a K-12 school in South Korea. Siri holds a BA from Sarah Lawrence College, a MA in anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania, and a MAT (masters in teaching with a focus on technology) from the University of Southern California.
Ariel Martinez Brumbaugh
Ariel is the English Language Arts and Lead Teacher in grades 6-12. Ariel has nine years of experience both teaching and leading in independent schools. She has an MA in Writing from Johns Hopkins University and teaches the Connect class and Literature. To her, Mysa is an oasis for kids who need both the freedom to be an individual as well as the support of a school family. Ariel can be found kayaking on the Patuxent River with her black Lab, Tavi, in her free time.
Mike Meadows
Mike is our Middle School English and Science Teacher and resident Renaissance man. He has been working in education for over 10 years. He loves exploring the creative possibilities of education, bringing his eclectic background in literature, film studies, and architecture to bear on curriculum design and classroom instruction. Mike holds a PhD in Literature from Yale University, a Bachelor of Architecture from Cornell University, and teaching certificates in Reading English Language Arts and Italian from the Maryland State Department of Education. Mike is also a passionate believer in education reform and has worked with the non-profit group Teach Plus to advocate on key policy issues to reimagine K-12 education for the 21st century. Outside of school, Mike can be found at his pottery studio, in acting class, or exploring DC with his husband and beagle.
Robyn Gausman-Burnett
Robyn oversees all things curricular via our new App and supports great teaching at Mysa. She is a graduate of Villanova University and The New School for Social Research. She holds several certificates in education including a concentration in Special education for Positive Psychology and Optimism from the Institute for Childhood and Educational Psychology-Europe, certificates in Competency Based Education and Educational Profiling from MIT. Over the past thirteen years she has taught math, business, and social studies spending time at schools in Korea, China and the US. For the past two years, she has been the Curriculum Specialist for Maryknoll School a K-12 Catholic school in Hawaii. In this role she directed teachers through the transition to national standards, redesigned the faculty and graduate profile and led the schools project-based learning and instruction initiative. In her spare time, she enjoys traveling as much as she can, reading great books, going to the movies and playing strategic board games.
Daniel Tuyisenge
Daniel is the math teacher and subject specialist for Mysa. He is from a big family in Rwanda and has a lot of experience teaching all ages and levels in mathematics and physics. He has an MA in actuarial science from Ball State University, IN, as well as a BS in mathematics and physics from Wofford College, SC. In his free time, he enjoys exploring the region, in his second year in the DMV and seventh in the USA. He loves parks, gardens, hiking, and biking and spending time visiting museums.
Lila Teenyanoff
Lila is the Makerspace teacher at Mysa School. Originally from Vermont, she graduated from Mount Holyoke College with majors in Geology and Critical Social Thought. Lila’s prior experience includes teaching STEM classes at KID Museum, facilitating tinkering and science explorations at the Montshire Museum of Science, as well as art making at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art. She is always excited to see students explore their ideas through tinkering. In her free time, Lila enjoys ceramics, skiing and visiting the zoo.
Whitney Retzer
Whitney works behind the scenes to help admin and outreach flourish. She has worked in international education for more than a decade in Azerbaijan, Japan, Thailand, UAE, and the USA. She has Marketing BA from the University of Minnesota and a MEd in educational leadership from the American College of Education. As a former educator, she loves the teaching and learning process and comparing best practices internationally with Mysa’s robust curricular offerings for subject-based mastery. When she is not working, she can be found exploring with her husband and daughter.
Luci Cedrone
Luci is the math and resource specialist at Mysa. She graduated from Harvard University and has a Master’s degree from Harvard School of Education in Mind, Brain, & Education. She also received an Ed. S. in Assistive Technology from Simmons University. She joins us from the Lab School of Washington where she taught last year. Luci is the mother of Mysa students Timothy and Eli. In her free time, Luci enjoys baking, crochet, Iyengar yoga, and visiting museums and historic sites with the family (back when we could do that)
Additional Instructors
We also have several part time teachers including Spanish teachers, PE teachers and other single subject specialists.
Join our Team
Director of Enrollment, Advancement and Creative Expansion
Director of Enrollment, Advancement and Creative Expansion
Washington, DC
Job Summary
The Director of Enrollment, Advancement and Creative Expansion has 3 primary roles: to lead admission and enrollment, coordinate fundraising events and grant writing efforts and be an innovative-minded leader who will contribute to the School’s expansion and impact on education. Successful candidates must be an effective multi-tasker, have strong administrative, communication and organizational skills, strong digital marketing experience and be a strong advocate for experiential learning and drawn to Mysa’s Mission and unique pedagogical approach.
Reporting to the Head of School, the Director of Enrollment, Advancement and Creative Expansion and will be the part of a small staff and be responsible for outreach and marketing expansion and creative thinking, fundraising, establishing strategic enrollment and advancement direction with specific admission and fundraising goals, event planning, work plans, workflow, and budgets. The Director will play a vital role in the Mysa community and will work closely with Head of School and members of the faculty to meet educational innovation and expansion benchmarks. And meet the school’s enrollment and fundraising goals.
Job Responsibilities
- Provides leadership and energy to the creative thinking and planning process on how Mysa can expand its footprint.
- Manages admission, fundraising, marketing, and recruitment and directs the process of attracting, enrolling and retaining students while leading fundraising at Mysa.
- Sets annual enrollment and fundraising goals, in accordance with the school’s mission to promote economic, racial, and ethnic diversity in the student body.
- Participates in conversations with Head of and faculty about innovative strategic direction of the School. Contributes to creative discussions for Mysa’s expansion efforts in such places as Vermont.
- Understands and informs the Mysa community about research and trends in education, ensuring that changes and challenges are anticipated, understood, and addressed.
- Develops and implements strategic marketing ideas. Oversees the direction of all school publications, including admission process communications, updates to the School’s web site, and other marketing and communications material for Mysa.
- Develops Mysa’s grant writing strategy and meets deadlines for submission of proposals.
- Maintains statistical and trend data related to admission, enrollment and advancement. Presents statistical and trend information to Administrative team, Board of Trustees, and faculty.
- Oversees all on and off-campus admission visitation programs and all on and off-campus fundraising events.
- Maintains and encourages relationships with sources for prospective students (sending schools, counselors, educational programs, and consultants.
- Maintains and encourages relationships with sources for fundraising and donors.
- Maintains and enhances the School’s good standing in relevant professional organizations.
- Is an integral leader for the school community and participates fully in daily community life of the school.
- Extends himself/herself beyond the responsibilities of a job description when the need arises. Assists Head of School with all other duties as assigned.
Job Specifications
- Bachelor’s degree
- Five years of enrollment management, admission, digital marketing and fundraising experience
- Track record of thinking creatively and strategically about enrollment, advancement and the processes that support both
- Demonstrated comfort with commitment to diversity, equity inclusion.
- Strong commitment to progressive education
- Superior communication skills both written and spoken
- possess superior interpersonal and organizational skills
- Outstanding interpersonal, organizational and managerial skills
- High energy, flexibility, warmth and quick wit
- Ability to make decisions
Applying for the Position
Successful candidates must possess a bachelor’s degree and have admissions, digital marketing and fundraising experience with a track record of thinking creatively about education and wanting to be a positive change agent in the world of education. In addition, one must be a team player and possess superior interpersonal and organizational skills; be nimble, have a kind and authentically outgoing, empathetic demeanor; and the ability to make decisions; a quick wit; and a commitment to educational innovation.
The Mysa School has retained The Baker Group, the premier independent school enrollment management consulting firm, to assist in the recruitment of its next Director of Enrollment Management.
Interested candidates are asked to submit in an electronic file, their resume, a one to two-page cover letter, and names and contact information of three references directed to Christine H. Baker at: cbaker@thebakergrp.com.
Please submit materials by Nov. 16, 2020