From Ph.Ds to scuba-divers, nine new teachers join faculty for 2018-19.

  Swimming with fish the size of small cars, circling shipwrecks and diving 100 feet down in the ocean are just some of the things Mr. Chris St. Germaine has experienced in addition to being a teacher of math and science. After teaching at YULA Girls High School for five years, Mr. St. Germaine is teaching five classes at Shalhevet: 9th-grade Algebra, two 10th-grade Chemistry classes, and...

  New SAS History, Culture, and Politics of Israel teacher Mrs. Hannah Cohen plans to be “a guide on the side” for her students this year, helping them become more independent learners. Mrs. Cohen, an immigrant from England with degrees from the University of Oxford, said her teaching style would be to help her students to form their own opinions and to be autonomous while studying. “I...

  Raised in a traditional Persian family in Los Angeles, new college counselor and SAS Psychology teacher Mr. Eli Shavalian took matters into his own hands when it came to heading for college himself. “When I was applying to college my parents had no idea what was going on,” said Mr. Shavalian, who calls himself a “first-generation college student” since his parents had not gone. “I...

  Ms. Valencia Wilson has already been teaching here for two years, but this year has become a full-time Educational Support specialist employed directly by the school, something that her previous position did not entail. Ms. Wilson was first assigned to Shalhevet by Title 1, a federally funded program that provides additional educational services for low-income students. Because she was...

  Israeli native and IDF veteran Ms. Ortal Klyman, now armed with 18 years of teaching experience and a recently completed Master’s degree, is the newest addition to Shalhevet’s Hebrew department. She will be teaching ninth, 10th, and 11th grade Hebrew to five classes this year. Ms. Klyman was born and raised in Tzefat, Israel, and said she’d bring a passion for art, which she developed...

  From philosophy to surfing, Dr. Sheila Keiter is someone who stays true to her roots. “If we don’t know our own experiences, how do we fully identify?” she asked during an interview last week. This, it turns out, is part of how she approaches Jewish History and Tanakh, which she is teaching this year to freshmen and sophomores. She plans on using modern references to make her ...

  She hasn’t taught for five years, but Mrs. Nancy Fasules -- who will teach freshman and sophomore English this year -- is glad to be back in the classroom. From 2010 to 2018, Ms. Fasules served as Director of Admissions at New Roads School in Santa Monica, where Principal Mr. Daniel Weslow led the upper school before coming to Shalhevet in 2015. Before that, taught English at New...

Bored during a free period? New Director of Development Cheryl Wolf has candy on her desk and wants students to come and talk with her. Ms. Wolf has taken up a new post as Director of Development, making her responsible for raising funds for the school for scholarships and the Poland-Israel Experience, among other things. Ms. Wolf, who wants students to call her Cheryl, received her Bachelor’s...

  While David Diamond is an accomplished screenwriter with credits in big-budget films, he tries to stay humble. One of his high school yearbook quotes, he told the Boiling Point, still sums him up pretty well. It’s by Kurt Vonnegut: If a person with a demonstrably ordinary mind like mine will devote himself to a work of the imagination, that work will in turn tempt and tease that...