Founder and Head of School
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Jason grew up in New England, and discovered the amazing beauty of Colorado after graduating from Brown University in Rhode Island. His previous experience with teens includes leading community service programs on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in Montana, backpacking trips in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, and biking trips in Nova Scotia and Maine. In addition to serving as the Assistant to the Head at Northfield Mount Hermon School, he has been a high school teacher of religious studies and ethics, trained teachers for a national test preparation company, and was an instructor in the University of Colorado’s teacher education and chancellor's leadership programs. Jason received his Ph.D. from the University of Colorado, and his research on curricular innovation has been published in the Journal of Experiential Education and the Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education. Jason currently consults with independent schools throughout the country on issues of schedule and curriculum redesign.
SUMAYA ABU-HAIDAR, Ph.D.
Founder of Watershed School
303-513-2049
Sumaya Abu-Haidar, Ph.D. was born and raised in Beirut, Lebanon. Fleeing the civil war, Sumaya and her family moved to the United States when she was 12. After completing high school, she attended Dartmouth College, and majored in political philosophy with an additional concentration in education. The combination of these two areas of study gave Sumaya a lens through which to understand the political and social chaos that had defined her childhood in Lebanon. As her studies progressed, she became increasingly committed to exploring the ways in which schools can strengthen and re-vitalize a democracy by educating responsible and engaged democratic citizens. After graduating from Dartmouth, Sumaya spent two years teaching high school and middle school in Alabama, an experience that further fueled her desire to study the relationship between education and democracy. She left Alabama for a Ph.D. program in political theory and education at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
John McCluskey
Associate Head of School and Dean of Students
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John McCluskey joins the Watershed team in his eighteenth year as an educator, administrator and youth development professional. He grew up in Chicago, moved to Colorado in his early teens, where, after a few forays beyond, he is happy to remain. John entered the teaching profession dedicated to holistic, child-centered educational alternatives which has led him down a dynamic career path.
He has traveled extensively with teens in places ranging from Guatemala, to Chicago and across the desert Southwest. He has been a faculty member in the Education Dept. at Colorado State University, a director of a summer camp facility for Boys and Girls Clubs of Metro Denver, a high school educator, a middle school educator, a teacher trainer and director of a nationwide youth leadership program. His passion for authentic connections and non-violent dialogue models, led him to become a trainer in the Council process and a faculty member for the PassageWorks Institute. John founded and is the current Co-Director of the Colorado Center for Council Training. Throughout his career, he has been an instructor and mentor in a wide variety of course offerings such as Building Trades, Wildlife Biology, Senior Rites of Passage, Youth Leadership and Woodturning. John earned both his B.S. and M.S. in Education from Colorado State University and completed his Principal Licensure program for the State of Colorado in 2003. He was the past president and is a current board member of Colorado Options in Education, an organization which has a twenty year track record of supporting and networking Colorado based educational alternatives.
A mountain man at heart, John spends his leisure time enjoying life above 8000ft with his wife Emily and two children Reilly and Grace. His interests include woodturning, backpacking, soul-seeking and contemplating issues of peace and justice around a campfire.
Jill Grano
Director of Admissions and Development
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Jill grew up in the beautiful and historic town of Williamsburg, Virginia where she attended The College of William and Mary and graduated with a BA in Government. Jill joins Watershed School with a unique set of skills and experiences from a variety of different backgrounds.
Jill worked in the outdoor and action sports industry for five years. In 2003, Jill co-created and launched "Outdoor Nature Camp" for children ages 6-12 at the Wakefield Park/Audrey Moore Rec Center in Annandale, Virginia. From 2005 to 2007, Jill worked with Action Sports Alliance, a non-profit association of professional female skateboarders who united to advocate gender equality in action sports. Jill served as the athlete liaison, website manager, and Director's assistant during a pivotal time in the history of women's action sports.
Jill also has years of experience in real estate investing and property management. After graduating from Alpha College of Real Estate in 2003, Jill pursued real estate investing in the greater Williamsburg area and managed rental properties for a local investment company.
When Jill is not at Watershed School, she enjoys spending time with her husband, Jordan, and son, Ryder (Watershed Class of 2022), reading, mountain biking, running, hiking, and skiing.
Pablo Stayton
Lead High School Educator
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Pablo's love of the outdoors, commitment to innovative educational practices, and experience with teens is reflected in his 20-plus years of professional work. For the past nine years, Pablo taught high school Spanish and Humanities at the Rocky Mountain School of Expeditionary Learning in Denver. When he wasn't working with students exploring such complex topics as human rights, the meaning of culture, or the relationship between the structure of U.S. government and capitalism, he could be found teaching rock climbing, Mexican cooking, or salsa dancing, or dressed up in a skirt and sombrero telling a story in Spanish with animal puppets. Each year, Pablo took students on trips to the Texas/Mexico border and the Copper Canyon, two areas where, as an Outward Bound instructor, he had developed deep connections with both the people and the natural landscape.
Before becoming a high school teacher, Pablo worked with Outward Bound in many capacities: senior instructor, course director, instructor trainer, and safety coordinator. He has spent 1200+ days leading wilderness expeditions with groups of all ages. He was also a senior administrator, directing OB base camps on the Texas/Mexico border, and in Arizona. This past summer, Pablo was an instructor for Puerto Rican Expeditionary Learning teachers and administrators; it was the first-ever Colorado Outward Bound course conducted entirely in Spanish.
Pablo earned a Masters of Global Studies from Denver University, with a concentration in human rights. His thesis focused on the Tarahumara Indians in the Copper Canyon.
Pablo's interests include carpentry, backpacking, canoeing, traveling, and climbing. He also enjoys playing musical instruments and singing with his three-year-old son, Lee.
Sarah Rebick
Lead High School Educator
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Sarah comes to Watershed after ten years at Northfield Mount Hermon School, a competitive prep school in western Massachusetts, where she taught English, and also designed and taught several interdisciplinary and expeditionary courses. One such course, Turtle Island Transformed: Literary, Ethical, and Historical Perspectives on the North American Landscape, brought her and her class to Boulder and other cities, parks, and towns as they studied the complex relationship between people and the places where they live and work. During their stay in Boulder, the students and teachers got an early glimpse of the Watershed School when they slept on the floor in the Big Room the year before the school opened!
Sarah is a skilled teacher of writing and enjoys helping her students develop their voices and hone their skills. In addition to academic teaching, Sarah lived in boys' dorms, served as the head coach for girls cross country and the distance coach for boys and girls track (2007 New England Champions!), worked with a number of faculty and student committees, and developed a reputation for good students/parent advising. She was also instrumental in establishing a Task Force for Sustainability, a committee of students, faculty, staff, and administrators who work together to educate the community and advise the administration in an effort to make the school of 700 students a more sustainable institution.
Sarah has extensive outdoor experience, having fulfilled a variety of staff roles at a traditional summer camp in Maine, and traveled by foot and by bicycle with her family when she was growing up. She has led backpacking and canoe trips and has thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail.
Sarah holds a BA in Environmental Studies from Middlebury College where she was also a 2-year captain of the nationally ranked womens cross country team. She earned an MA in English from the Bread Loaf School of English. When she is not at school, Sarah enjoys running, hiking, biking, playing with her dog, and reading whatever she gets her hands on. She looks forward to sharing these passions with the Watershed community.
Mike Giamellaro
Lead High School Educator
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Mike's teaching practice grew out of his passion for whitewater kayaking when he taught and created curriculum for the University of Wyoming. Realizing how much he enjoyed the teaching, he incorporated more and more opportunities to add 'educator' to his role as a biologist for the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Eventually, he returned to school to adjust the balance and make teaching his primary focus and science secondary.
He has an unquenchable thirst for learning and while that often happens through books and other didactic media he recognizes that his learning curve steepens when he is engaged in an expedition, exploring a foreign environment, or putting knowledge to practice. This realization forms the foundation of his teaching practice. So while he is passionate about many vocational and avocational pursuits, he enjoys most those that have ample room for new learning.
His formal education includes undergraduate study at the University of Wyoming (Wildlife Biology), a Master's in Education from CU Denver, and current enrollment in a PhD program, also at UCD. He has had the pleasure of teaching in a wide variety of public and independent schools including Jefferson County Open School and the Center for Discovery Learning in Colorado, and Friends Seminary and Packer
Collegiate Institute in New York City. Topics have included, biology, field ecology, flight, Lewis & Clark, energy, paleontology, marine biology, chemistry, physics, photography, extreme environments, sociology in the Mississippi Delta, mapping, and math.
Anastasia Milliken
Lead Middle School Educator
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Originally from New York, Anastasia Milliken completed her BA in Theatre/Speech and moved from Brooklyn, NY to Boulder, CO after graduating from The National Shakespeare Conservatory in NYC, a two-year professional training program for the actor. While remaining loyal to the stage as a performer, Anastasia has been busy teaching and directing in Colorado public and private schools since 1997. Anastasia is a graduate of The University of Colorado School of Education's MA+ program where she earned a Master of Education in Instruction and Curriculum and State Teaching Certification in Secondary English. While attending CU, Anastasia spent 2 successive summers in Steamboat Springs at Perry-Mansfield Performing Arts School and Camp as the Head Counselor and Intermediate Drama Instructor. She completed her student teaching assignment at the Denver School of the Arts and taught Theatre and Language Arts while directing main stage and studio productions after school. She was hired soon after graduation to teach 7th/8th Grade World Literature and co-led the DSA Theatre Department's "History of Theatre" excursion to Italy, Turkey and Greece the same year. Her presence at the Great Books Summer Reading Program at Stanford University and Amherst College since 2005 as Theatre Director and Discussion Leader has produced a successful and growing theatre program of over a dozen self-abridged Shakespearian plays and countless original student works. Anastasia is thrilled by the opportunity to apply an extensive array of professional experience to Watershed School with the intention to create meaningful and personally relevant learning on and off stage, in and out of the classroom.
Joe McCaffrey
Lead Middle School Educator
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Joe grew up in the Allegheny Mountains of Western Pennsylvania. He found his love for teaching children during his summers in college coaching hockey camps at Penn State University. After graduating from the University of Arizona with a BA in Communication he moved to Colorado to become a teacher. Joe is a cognitivist teacher by nature. Frustrated with the traditional education system he searched to find an alternative path to entering the teaching field. He found himself at Friends' School in Boulder Colorado where he received his teaching license through the Stanley British Primary School Alternative Teacher Licensure Program. Joe is currently working on his MS in Educational Psychology at the University of Colorado in Denver.
His training at the Friends' School in Boulder led him to Mackintosh Academy where he was a middle school teacher for two years. At Mackintosh he taught Writer's Workshop, U.S. History, Physical Science, Geometry, and Algebra II. He also led and developed Student Service Council, a service learning group of first through eighth graders, performing service projects throughout the Littleton and Denver community. Joe also has a strong love for nature and for learning through experiences in nature. This love inspired him to work in outdoor education as a field instructor for the Keystone Science School for a summer where he taught inquiry-based science, led backpacking trips, and led exploration days in the field. He brings his passion to the Watershed School with hands-on, real-life experiences integrated into all of his lessons.
Jen Bamesberger
Lead Middle School Educator
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Jen dove into experiential education two decades ago at Slide Ranch, guiding kids and families in milking goats, feeding chickens, creating compost, and exploring tide pools north of San Francisco. Since then she has integrated technology in Bay Area elementary schools, managed product development of web-based curriculum, taught 7th and 8th grade life and physical science, coordinated science curriculum and service projects for public schools in northern California, and supervised Funky Art Treasures, where kids led workshops making art from recycled materials.
Jen earned a B.S. in Biology and worked with public and private natural resource management agencies to preserve endangered species, wading in creeks to count Coho salmon, documenting feeding and nesting habits of Roseate Terns and Piping Plovers, and measuring territories of Spotted Owls.
She believes that kids need to emerge from school not only with a bank of facts, a clear conceptual framework, and the ability to think critically, but that they also need to be practiced in being curious, in knowing how to immerse themselves in a topic and pose their own intriguing questions. Her passion as a teacher is to build students willingness and confidence to figure things out for themselves.
Jen joined the cadre of science teachers at the Exploratorium Teacher Institute in 2003. She has guided adolescents in white water rafting and enjoys any outdoor adventure involving hiking or rivers, especially discovering new hot springs. An avid contra dancer and sometime cellist, she is excited to explore a new region of the country and ready to learn alongside the kids this year about Colorado agriculture, geology, and geography.
John Martin
Lead Middle School Educator
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John has been teaching since 1989 when he student taught at Northeast Junior High in Longmont. He then went on to Mackintosh Academy in Littleton where he was the lead teacher in their Middle School for gifted students. In 1998 John took a position at Rocky Mountain School for the Gifted and Creative in Boulder, where he started their expeditionary middle school. In 2006 John came on board at Watershed School as the first lead middle school educator.
John holds a BA in English and Environmental Studies from Western Michigan University and got his teaching credential at CU Boulder. John was on staff at CU Denver in 1996 and 1997 as part of their Energy 2020 program where he and other teachers implemented innovative energy education curricula that are still used today. He spent a summer working at NREL labs in the photovoltaic section as a part of the Energy 2020 program. John also has extensive post graduate education at CU Boulder and CU Denver.
John has developed curricula in drama, film, literature, writing, energy education, water, and GIS. John has produced full length, unedited dramas since 1993, including: Much Ado About Nothing, A Midsummer Night's Dream, A Comedy of Errors, As You Like It, Prometheus Bound, The Moon is Down, and An Enemy of the People. He has also developed numerous hands-on, experiential units in geography and social studies such as the production of an atlas of Boulder County, and an atlas of Colorado by county.
John was born in Salida, Colorado and has a deep sense of place that he hopes to pass on to his students. He is especially passionate about the place-based education provided at Watershed School. Prior to entering teaching, John was a stone mason and tile setter for twenty years. He builds masonry bread and pizza ovens, and has an extensive garden. He and his wife Arlene love to travel, especially to France, Italy, and Spain. They have a large family of children, grandchildren, brothers, sisters, cousins, nieces, nephews, and aunts and uncles.
John follows the Jeffersonian philosophy of education where the goal is a human being with a broad education, well rounded interests, and the ability to maintain the democracy.
Cory Pavicich
Edcucational Support Specialist
303-440-7520, extension 103
Cory is a Colorado native born in the small town of Rye, CO, southwest of Pueblo. As an undergraduate at the University of Colorado, Cory taught both with Boulder-based Science Discovery, as well as the Herbst Humanities for Engineers program. He graduated in 2004 with a double major in English and Humanities, and received Summa Cum Laude honors for a thesis exploring images of teachers and teaching in classic literature. Through 2005 Cory taught for the local technology education camp, Bits, Bytes and Bots, where he designed a substantial portion of their early curriculum. Before heading to Harvard for an M.Ed., Cory was invited to work on a leadership book project by the now director of Northwestern University's Leadership Studies Program, Dr. Adam Goodman; he will be listed as a contributor on the yet-to-be-published book in leadership studies: Not Another Rule Book: 6 Leaders, 6 Questions, & You. At Harvard Cory studied under Eleanor Duckworth and researched the role of freedom in learning, and under Dr. Chris Dede looking into the growing impact of Google in the classroom. Cory has also worked as an editor and tutor, and recently spent a summer installing solar panels in the Denver area. As an aspiring bohemian, when not at the Watershed School, Cory can most often be found trying to make his Volkswagen street legal or building giant domes for the Burning Man festival.
Vanessa Compton
Arts and Rock Climbing Instructor
Vanessa Compton grew up in Vermont where her father, a professional singer-songwriter, musically influenced her from an early age. She started playing classical cello at age seven, and also picked up guitar and piano. During her teens she performed throughout the East Coast, England and Wales singing in Village Harmony, a teen choir specializing in Serbo-Croatian, shape-note, gospel, and Georgian music. In 2003, she spent a semester in Senegal where she studied the kora, a West African harp/lute. There she interviewed musical greats such as Lamine Konte and Baaba Maal and wrote her thesis about the kora's influence on the ever-evolving West African hip-hop scene. In 2005, she graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from CU-Boulder. Currently, Vanessa spends her time teaching art and music at Watershed, working for local tabla player/producer Ty Burhoe, rock climbing and working in her studio.
Vanessa has climbed extensively throughout the lower 48, France and Greece. She is excited to share her love for climbing with Watershed students and is teaching bouldering as a fitness option.
