New Teachers at Niwot Elementary 2023

Niwot Elementary School has hired a significant number of new teachers this fall due to retirements and student enrollment.

In the past year, several teachers retired at Niwot Elementary School, including Julie Nelson-Breyer, Jessica Easley, and Lori Charbonneau, all of whom taught at Niwot for an average of two decades. As a result of the retirements and the school's commitment to maintain an appropriate student-to-teacher ratio, the school hired six new teachers.

"Because we lost teachers, we feel like we need to support our students the best we can," said Xea Otero-Symphony in the clerk and registrar's office for the school. According to Otero-Symphony, the student-to-teacher ratio is around 25-to-1 this year. The new teachers are Nina Starks, Lyndsey Moauro, Allison Brodacz, Hanna Sandhoff, Abigail Clemmons, and Amanda Woodle. Three of the new teachers are profiled below, with others to follow next week.

Hanna Sandhoff is one of two new first-grade teachers at Niwot Elementary this year. This will be her first year teaching, and she is delighted that she could do so at Niwot Elementary, a school she attended herself when she was young.

Sandhoff said, "Niwot holds a special place in my heart because I went to Niwot Elementary for one year and then attended and graduated from Niwot High School.... I chose first grade because students are excited to learn and are very open to a growth mindset. They are so creative and I think they teach me more than I teach them."

"My third grade teacher was one of my biggest inspirations," Lyndsey Moauro, the newest third-grade teacher at Niwot Elementary said. "I wanted to be just like her when I grew up. I wanted to inspire kids to reach for their dreams, I wanted to help shape them to be the most successful version of themselves possible, and I wanted to make a difference in their lives and the world around us." Moauro is starting her sixth year of teaching, having taught fourth grade for five years in Greeley before moving to Niwot.

Moauro is also delighted to fulfill her dream job of teaching third grade in the same school system that she grew up in. "Teaching is not always a walk in the park and to have a principal like Nancy Pitz and co-workers such as those here at Niwot, I could not have asked for more," she said. "This school oozes with passion and students who are driven and excited to learn."

Nina Starks, the new fourth-grade teacher, said, "Each afternoon before going home for the day we stop and give each other compliments from the day and my students notice and give shoutouts to their classmates about the most specific acts from the day and really show a great deal of empathy and support for one another. They are all little gems that I feel incredibly fortunate to get to spend my days with."

Starks is going into her thirteenth year of teaching, starting in Nevada, where she taught third grade. She eventually moved to Austin, Texas, where she spent six years teaching fourth-grade homeroom at Cedar Creek Elementary. After teaching in Texas, she spent two more years at Soaring Heights in Erie, then settled on Niwot, where she knew a friend and past teammate, Sean Flaherty. Starks said, "We aren't even a month into school and I feel like I have found my home. I can imagine myself teaching here for the next 25 years."