Meet the Staff

Kellie Sawyer has lived in the Shenandoah Valley most of her life. She has been teaching locally in kindergarten, first, and fourth grade since 2012, and was a PreK assistant for 8 years prior. She has an undergraduate degree from JMU and earned her teaching certificate at Mary Baldwin. Kellie enjoys music and hiking. Sharing her love of books, music and nature with the students will foster creativity and engagement in the classroom. She loves teaching the lower elementary students!

Kellie enjoys encouraging students to be creative, thoughtful and independent; helping them develop a love of reading, exploring and learning is her goal. It is also important for her students to know they are valued as individuals. She has three grown children of her own and has seen the value of teaching life skills and empathy. She hopes to provide a welcoming, loving, and supportive environment for educational and personal growth. Children learn through play and it is a valuable part of every day.

Eric McKee is the school’s Upper Classroom instructor. He grew up in Rockingham County and attended both city and county schools before graduating from HHS as a National Merit Scholar. He went to University of Virginia, where he was an Echols Scholar and a Howard Hughes undergraduate fellow, doing research in biochemistry. Mr. McKee made his first career switch from graduate school in biochem to law school at the University of Texas in Austin. After graduation and some supplemental coursework, Eric worked in tax for about 17 years, primarily in the DC area, but with a posting in Panama for 8 months.  He rose to a director’s position before making another career switch into education. Eric is a licensed secondary schools instructor whose prior experience includes teaching math & science for Fairfax County Public Schools in an alternative education program serving at-risk youth. He has a level 2 certificate as a nature-based educator from the Eastern Region Association of Nature and Forest Schools (ERAFANS).

Janeth McKee hails from Panama City, Panama, where she received her Bachelor’s degree in Banking and Finance from the University of Panama. She was an administrative assistant in law firms for a number of years before she met Mr. McKee. They married and the McKees returned to the US when his rotation through Panama ended. Once in Virginia, Sra. McKee found her true calling: teaching Spanish. Janeth has taught Spanish for nine years now; 4 years of which were spent at River Farm Forest School in Alexandria, VA, where she taught multiple mixed age classes ranging from K-8. She has certificates from the World Language Institute and Klett World Languages after completing instructional professional development.

Sandra Grinberg provides a recurring movement class for our school. Sandra started dancing as a little kid in Gdańsk, Poland, at the National Ballet School. After graduating in 1998, she became a student at PARTS, the School of Arts in Brussels, Belgium, where she studied various dance forms as well as Tai Chi, Shiatsu, Reiki and other modalities. In 2000, Sandra achieved her dream by joining Trisha Brown Dance Company, where she toured the globe performing and teaching the company’s material. In 2009, Sandra obtained a Yoga Instructor Certificate from OM Yoga Studios. After leaving TBDC, she taught dance; studied meditation, mindfulness, and Qi Gong; and relished raising her son.
She moved to Harrisonburg in 2019 and is now living her dream life holistically, surrounded by animals and nature.