Marissa Matthews was a Montessori student from age 2.5 to 11. She studied opera as an undergraduate and received a B.A. in Music from UC Berkeley. After a couple of years teaching English in Japan, she found her calling and came back to Montessori. She now holds an AMI diploma for ages 0-6 from the Montessori Institute of San Diego and a M.Ed. with a Montessori specialization from the University of San Diego. She still loves music and sings with the Oakland Jazz Choir. She is also learning to play the ukulele, which the children in the classroom greatly enjoy. She has one child of her own and loves to spend her time with her family singing, gardening, and camping. She joined TRIS in 2016.

Olga Morataya immi­grated to the United States from Guatemala in 1995. Since then she has acquired the Child Devel­op­ment Assis­tant Per­mit and the Child Devel­op­ment Assis­tant Teacher per­mit and has run her own in-​home day­care pro­gram. Olga has also taught children’s Chris­t­ian edu­ca­tion for over 15 years in Guatemala and in Oak­land. Olga has been at TRIS since 2008.  

Erika Zavala was born in Santa Clara, CA. She lived in Cuernavaca, MX for most of her childhood and lived in north­ern Cal­i­for­nia all of her adult life. Erika is the Spanish-​speaking assistant in the Pri­mary. She has an Early Child­hood back­ground and expe­ri­ence in fam­ily day care. Erika has worked with chil­dren in var­i­ous capac­i­ties from ages 0-6 years old. Erika has been working at The Renaissance International School (TRIS) since 2009. Erika enjoys dance, play soccer, camping, and spending time with her daughter who will be attending TRIS in 2016.