Aftercare Staff

Lori Christopher

Ms. Lori was born and raised in Flint, Michigan. Her family owned a Cornish pasty shop (British turnovers) using her grandmother’s recipe. After graduating from high school, she and her father moved to San Francisco to open a shop in the heart of what is now known as the SOMA district.

Lori studied at City College of San Francisco while managing the family business. Lori switched gears upon her father’s retirement and became the office manager at Pentagram Design in San Francisco where she met her husband John. They moved to Petaluma to start their family while looking for a community and schools that aligned with their approach to raising a family. After a long exhaustive search for a preschool, Lori found Golden Circle of Friends, an in-home program that opened her eyes to Waldorf education. It was there the seeds were planted to create a K - 8th Waldorf inspired elementary school. As a founding member of Live Oak Charter School, Lori has watched the school grow from its original location at a church with grades K - 3 to now 20+ years later at the Fairgrounds. Her two daughters Emma and Juliette have attended Live Oak Charter School and Credo High School where Emma was in the first graduating class. Lori has been a student of Early Childhood Education, Restorative Practices and Education through Music which she applies in her work as the Assistant Teacher in the Sunflower Kindergarten and as the Kindergarten Aftercare Lead Teacher. Lori loves hiking, nature, cooking, reading and singing.

Lanie Wieland

Ms. Lanie was born and raised in Indiana. She grew up singing and playing piano. Lanie went to college in Michigan, majoring in Psychology, minoring in Theatre Arts. During college, she spent time studying in Türkiye (formerly known as Turkey), where she fell in love with the art of shadow puppetry. This led her to the Bay Area to work as a theater designer, and eventually to work as a teaching artist and musician. She has over 15 years of experience as a teaching artist and over 7 years of experience as a teaching musician in classrooms and enrichment programs throughout the Bay Area. When her son, Liam (1st grade), started school at Live Oak, Lanie was happy to join the Aftercare Staff. In the 2022-23 school year, she joined the Live Oak educational staff as an RSP Aide, and you’ll still see her in Aftercare on Thursdays. She also teaches Music at the Waugh School District. Lanie enjoys hiking, being in nature, handwork, writing, art, making music and spending time with family and friends.

Lyn Nielsen

Lyn was born in the Philippines, where spent most of her early life in the city of Zamboanga. Later she studied Information Technology in Computer Programming at the Universidad de Zamboanga. She has lived and worked in Kuwait and Thailand before moving to the United States in 2012 where she now lives in Petaluma. Settling in Petaluma, she continued her studies in ESL at Petaluma Adult School and at Santa Rosa Junior College.

She worked as a Reading Intervention Assistant at McDowell Elementary in addition to working with the Extended Day Program and as a playground supervisor.

In 2022 she joined the Live Oak Team and is thoroughly enjoying the environment and her amazing colleagues, as well as working with all the wonderful kids.

In her spare time she loves to travel, sing Karaoke, listen to music, as well as doing crafts and spending time with friends and watching movies.