As school opened this year, the Harvard School District welcomed several new classroom teachers, education specialists, and administrators. Hildreth Elementary School has new classroom teachers in fourth and fifth grade, a new reading specialist, and two new hires for the special education program. Bromfield Middle School has a new special education teacher as well as a new French teacher. Bromfield High School has a new math teacher.
— Hildreth Elementary School —
Six new staff members joined HES this year.
Isabelle Letourneau, fourth grade
Letourneau is in her first full year teaching a fourth-grade class. Since earning double bachelor’s degrees from the University of Connecticut in elementary education and in human development and family sciences in 2025, Letourneau went on to earn a master’s degree in curriculum and instruction last spring, also from UConn. She spent four months last fall teaching fourth grade in Cape Town, South Africa, and has worked as an intern with multilingual students in Mansfield, Conn.
“In the coming year, I am looking forward to forming close connections with my students, fostering a love of learning, and encouraging students to practice perseverance,” Letourneau wrote in an email to the Press. “I hope to create an inclusive classroom where students feel heard and supported. As we begin to shape the culture of our classroom community, I look forward to celebrating student accomplishments while promoting collaboration and teamwork.”
Emma Smith, fifth grade
Smith is a new classroom teacher for the fifth grade. For the past three years, she has been teaching third grade in Rhode Island. She holds a bachelor’s degree in elementary education from the University of Rhode Island. Smith, who grew up in nearby Clinton, said in an email, “I am happy to be back near the community I grew up in.”
Asked what she particularly looks forward to this year, Smith wrote, “I look forward to chaperoning and creating connections with my students during Nature’s Classroom.” (Nature’s Classroom is the multi-overnight team-building trip fifth-graders take each year to an outdoor education center in Charlton.) Smith continued, “Creating connections/bonds is one of my favorite parts of the job because I enjoy helping the students grow academically and emotionally. Having students feel comfortable and confident with themselves is very important to their academic success, and I enjoy supporting them through that process.”
Rachel Crittendon, special education teacher
Also new for fifth-graders is Crittendon, who is a special education teacher for that grade. She has 10 years of teaching experience at kindergarten and third grade, most recently in Lawrence. “Coming from Lawrence, which is a very large district with over 25 schools, I am excited for the strong sense of welcoming and community that a town like Harvard has,” Crittendon said in an email. “I particularly enjoy teaching math and am looking forward to going beyond the foundational math skills that students learn earlier in elementary school.”
Crittendon is no stranger to the Harvard school district; she noted her mother has been a teacher at the Bromfield School for many years. Currently Lauren Crittendon teaches English language learners there.
Katherine McKeon, reading specialist
McKeon comes to HES from the Lexington public schools, where she was a reading specialist and first-grade teacher. As part of a pilot program in her previous district, McKeon worked with the reading program EL Education, which was introduced in Hildreth last year. “I am familiar with the structure, goals, and topics of the [EL Education] modules,” she wrote. “I love to work with students to learn more about their own identities and experiences as they develop their literacy skills,” she wrote. “I hope to support students to see themselves as confident and capable readers and writers.”
The HES newsletter reported that McKeon has set a goal for herself of reading 100 books in 2026, and she welcomes book recommendations.
Amanda Spindola, special education administrator
Spindola brings more than 20 years of experience to her position as special education administrator at HES. She spent most of those years as a special education teacher either in a fully inclusive classroom or in a sub-separate classroom, she said in an email. She wrote, “A strength that I am excited to bring to the position is my experience; because I have taught in multiple settings, I have gained the ability to be a creative problem solver.”
For the past three years Spindola has been a special education administrator and was a team evaluation coordinator in the Framingham public schools. “I have already seen what a tight-knit and supportive community Harvard is, especially in relation to the schools,” she wrote. While her recent experience was in a larger district, she wrote, “I prefer smaller districts because they offer the opportunity to work closely with both staff and families.”
Spindola’s main goal this year, she said, “is really to get to know the culture of Harvard and especially HES. … I am very excited to work collaboratively with families to support all students. I truly value the relationship between families and the schools.”
Lila Teenyanoff, library and technology
Teenyanoff is the elementary school’s new library/technology teacher. The HES newsletter reported she previously worked as a librarian and a makerspace teacher in schools and museums. Most recently, she was a library media specialist at the Station Avenue Elementary School in Yarmouth. Before that, she worked at the Acton-Boxborough Regional School district. The newsletter also noted that Teenyanoff is from Vermont and enjoys swimming, kayaking, skiing, making ceramics, and reading.
— Bromfield School —
The Bromfield School welcomed three new teachers for the 2026–27 school year.
Jennifer Meegan, special education
This is Meegan’s 16th year teaching special education; she has taught in Westford and most recently in Sudbury. In an email, she said, “I have enjoyed teaching middle school the most!” She currently lives in Littleton and said she loves living in a place where you know the teachers, your neighbors, and the bus drivers. “Harvard has that same feeling. I am looking forward to being a part of a tight-knit community,” she said.
Meegan talked about the current challenges and her plans to meet them: “The biggest challenge in giving support to middle school students is having them ‘buy into’ the process. Many students, special education or not, have the initial gut reaction to say, ‘When am I even going to need to know this?’ and that can be difficult to combat. Meeting this challenge can be supported with making the content more relatable to them with something even as simple as using their favorite artist’s name in a math problem. Another way to meet this challenge is building relationships with students. Students need to feel safe, valued, and able to trust their teachers, and only then will they be vulnerable enough to put forth their best effort, with the possibility of making a mistake and learning from it.”
Edwina Rasamison, French
Rasamison wrote in an email: “I am excited to join the TBMS community! I taught the French language and culture for several years in Massachusetts; in Cairo, Egypt; and most recently in Kathmandu, Nepal. … After many years of teaching and adventures around the world, I am happy to be back in Massachusetts with my family and excited for this new adventure!
“I’m looking forward to getting to know my students and becoming part of the Bromfield community. … For many of my students here, this may be their first real experience learning a new language and discovering another culture. I hope French class and the diversity of the Francophone world can become a window into a much bigger world for them.”
She said she loves the energy and curiosity of middle school students, but keeping students focused, with so many distractions around them, is a challenge. “It’s a challenge not unique to teaching French, but language learning does require students to participate, communicate, and be willing to make mistakes in front of others. I try to meet that challenge by keeping students active, working with partners, moving around, playing games, using technology, doing projects, and connecting French to things they are interested in. … When students feel comfortable and know that it’s okay to make mistakes, they are much more willing to participate. I want my classroom to be a place where making mistakes is normal and even celebrated, because that’s how we learn a language.”
Emily Thorne, math
In an email, Thorne said she began teaching quite by chance, first in a long-term substitute position to “get her feet wet.” She ended up loving it and then taught full time in Leominster for two years before coming to Harvard.
She said she has had little experience with Bromfield and Harvard so far, “but from what I have seen, it is a wonderful and welcoming environment. Every single person that I have come into contact with has been nothing but cheerful and willing to help. I’m sure this attitude reflects back into the student population! I am looking forward to a close-knit community of people.”
Asked about current challenges in teaching, she said, “One of the biggest challenges I have faced so far in my teaching career is the distractions technology presents and the shortened attention spans that go hand in hand with that. I do my best to combat this by creating a rigorous and entertaining classroom environment. I have the privilege of teaching honors and advanced placement classes this year, meaning that the courses will be difficult and will have to be fast-paced, but this doesn’t mean we don’t have fun! I love connecting with the students as much as I love teaching them, and I’ve found that these connections help students want to be engaged in the classroom.”
