Grades ​Teachers

First Grade Teacher
Season Petering
Season was practically born with chalk dust in her veins.  Born into a family of educators,  dinner conversations often revolved around educational theories and classroom stories.  This led her to pursue a career in Waldorf Education.  She earned her Waldorf Teaching certificate and master's degree in Waldorf Remedial Education from Sunbridge Institute in New York. Upon completing her studies, Season returned to the West Coast to further her qualifications, obtaining a Multiple Subject Teaching Credential from Dominican University of California.  For over a decade, Season taught in grades one through four before taking a brief hiatus to focus on her growing family.  Since returning, she has served as an intervention teacher, specializing in helping students overcome academic challenges and rediscover their love of learning.  Outside of her professional life, Season enjoys spending time at the beach, doing art projects with her children, and indulging her passion for interior design.
Second Grade Teacher
Nicole Mathers
Nicole Mathers is an artist, a singer, a parent and teacher.  Growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area she attended the San Francisco Waldorf School, where she loved the art, music and magic she felt in the curriculum.  After she returned from the East Coast and Mt. Holyoke College, where she completed a BA in Fine Art, Nicole began her teaching career.  At 21 years old she took a kindergarten class in a local public school in Richmond, CA and a few years later she began working at a Waldorf School as a class teacher.  In her teaching career Nicole has taught for two decades in Early Childhood and the grades, taking three classes from first through third grade, and spending many years as a Kindergarten teacher. She has had the opportunity to work at the Marin Waldorf School, the Monadnock Waldorf School, the Berkeley Rose Waldorf School, two public Schools in Richmond, CA and an International School in Geneva, Switzerland. 

One interesting fact about Nicole is that she wanted to become an opera singer when in her twenties, so she moved to France to pursue singing and ended up living there for eight years. She had her three children in France and enjoyed many wonderful experiences living in a different country, learning a new language and exploring Europe.  In France she gave voice lessons and singing workshops, had an Etsy store for her felted tapestries and spent a few years teaching second grade in a British School in Geneva, Switzerland.  She didn’t make it big in opera but did give some concerts and was a soloist with a local choir.

In her free time Nicole can often be found at her art studio in Petaluma, where she makes abstract watercolor painting, block prints and has taken up oil painting most recently.  She loves to dance and also to spend time with her children, one in college, one at Credo and the youngest still at Live Oak.
Third Grade Teacher
Cass Murphy
After earning my teaching credential from SSU and working the past 8 years at Live Oak on our Academic Coaching Team (ACT) for grades 1 - 5 and as a classroom aide in grades 1-3, I will be making my debut as the main classroom teacher for third grade this year. 

I have a 8th grade son who has attended Live Oak since kindergarten. His last year here is bittersweet for me as he begins to prepare for the wider world of education outside the beautiful, nurturing nest of Live Oak.

Our little 5 acre home here in Petaluma has beautiful gardens, free ranging sheep, chickens and lots of rambunctious pups, including our pug, Donut! In my off-time, I love to spend time outdoors, camping, backpacking, traveling internationally (we are bound for Turkey next summer) and rock climbing. I am an avid reader and consumer of literature, podcasts, live music and vegan eats!
Fourth Grade Teacher
Mary Cassidy
I was raised in northern Illinois with a brother and two sisters.   I grew up along the Mississippi River, loving the nature outside my back door and having only my imagination, siblings, and friends to play with.  I loved to bake, sew, put on shows, and began playing the piano in First Grade.  In Fifth Grade I took up the French horn and played throughout high school and into adulthood.   In high school, I spent a year in Australia as a Rotary Exchange student.  I earned my bachelor’s degree in International Business with a minor in  German from Elmhurst College.  After college, I had the chance to live and work in Japan for two years.   When I returned to Chicago, I took a Master’s degree in Education and continued to teach English as a Second Language at the City Colleges of Chicago.  After I moved to California, I earned my teaching credential while teaching 3rd grade in the LA Unified School  District.  After four years, I moved to San Jose to be near my brother’s family and taught for eight years in the Franklin McKinley School District.  During my time in San Jose, My colleagues and I received a scholarship to learn to bring music into the classroom with The San Francisco Symphony’s Keeping Score, year-long program.  This, I believe, spurred me on to work towards a more creative experience for my students.  I earned a Waldorf teaching certificate from the Bay Area Center for Waldorf Teacher Training (BACWTT) in June of 2013. I have recently worked for 10 years taking two classes from 1st to 5th grade at Stone Bridge School in Napa. I will soon begin my 24th year of teaching in a public school.
Fifth Grade Teacher
Gila Mann
Gila has been involved in Waldorf education for decades, teaching grades 1 through 8 at Waldorf schools in the Bay Area, San Diego, and in Germany. She sat on the board of trustees, served as faculty chair, and spent many summers teaching art and music to adults in Waldorf teacher training programs. At Live Oak, Gila has taught the middle-school loop since 2007.

Recently, she joined the grades 4 and 5 loop. Gila holds a California Multiple Subjects Teaching Credential and a M.A. in Education from Touro University, and a B.A. in Psychology from San Francisco State University. She received her Waldorf Education Teaching Credential in Hamburg, Germany. Gila is passionate about Waldorf lesson planning, finding many ways of weaving artistic elements into academic subjects and making the subjects relevant to students.

In her spare time, Gila enjoys painting and sculpting, gardening, cooking, traveling, spending time with family, and playing with her cat.