CM - She/Her

C is Hard-of-Hearing with a progressive loss, holds a BA in English from UC Berkeley, an MSEd in Deaf Education from Western Oregon University, and an MA in History from American Public University. She is currently pursuing an MA in Online Education and teaches at a school in the San Francisco Bay area

Having trained as an ASL interpreter (BEI certified w/ a 3.8 EIPA score) who worked for years in mainstream classrooms, as her ability to hear diminished, C has begun to focus more on her role as a Teacher of the Deaf. With a Superior SLPI score, she spends about half of her time signing and half of it speaking. After completing a BA in English from UC Berkeley, she graduated from Western Oregon University with an MS in Deaf Education with a focus on bilingual education, completed the Oregon DeafBlind Project’s Intervener training, completed a Master’s in History at American Public University (while falling in love with making ASL history lessons), and is pursuing an MA in Online Education. She held 4 Oregon endorsements (k-12 Deaf Ed, elementary multi-subject, social studies/history for middle and high school, and English/language arts for middle and high school) before returning to her home state of California

C has been nominated as Oregon Teacher of the Year, twice, and in 2023 was named one of Oregon’s 17 Regional Teachers of the Year. She’s the first Teacher of the Deaf to receive such an honor, something she sound doubly surprising as someone who worked as an itinerant in 4 districts. She has volunteered at Oregon's school for the Deaf, Washington's school for the Deaf, and the Demonstration School for the Deaf in Mampong, Ghana. She creates all her own curricula, works part-time as a property manager, and as a care-giver for children with Developmental Disabilities.

C is an educational fanatic, and goes to grad school in her spare time (including completing that MA in history for the fun of it in 2020). Outside of a classroom, she stays busy even though she misses the interactions she used to have as she can no longer interpret. She has 3 children (two of whom are legal adults who have graduated from high school), enjoys a family and loved ones who sign, and loves getting to spend time with her cat, partner, and family (both blood-related and chosen). Despite battling an auto-immune disorder, she enjoys boxing, lifting heavy things, riding her motorcycle, hiking with loved ones, cooking, & driving. She also knits & reads (which are easy things to do at the hospital)...and tries unsuccessfully to get enough sleep