faculty

EMILY MERCHANT
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Emily Merchant is a Utah native with a life-long interest in education and child development. She has earned a BS at the University of Utah, studying psychology and elementary education and a Masters in education from Antioch University with a focus on administration and Waldorf teaching.

Emily’s professional career has included work as a technical writer, a congressional Policy Adviser on education in Washington, DC, and experience in various educational contexts, such as teaching children with autism, coaching high school debate, creating service learning programs, and teaching dance and arts for preschoolers and in public schools.

After years of study and involvement in education, it was as a mother of three beautiful and lively girls that Emily discovered Waldorf education. Emily was enlivened and inspired by the use of the arts as a primary teaching modality, the deep spiritual and philosophical basis, the attention to the whole, developing child, and the role of the teacher in Waldorf schools. She immediately began learning more, incorporating aspects of the Waldorf approach into her home, and looking for Waldorf schools in her area.

After attending training at Rudolf Steiner College and aware that there were not any Waldorf schools in Utah (to which she was moving with her family), Emily was inspired to work to bring a Waldorf school to the Salt Lake Valley. Given her personal experiences as a mother and deep commitment to providing the highest quality educational options for students of all demographics and socio-economic statuses, Emily felt strongly that this must be a public charter school, allowing Waldorf education to be a choice for all families.

Over the last few years, Emily has worked with other dedicated individuals throughout the community to apply to the Utah State Office of Education for approval of Utah’s first Waldorf charter school. Emily is thrilled that the Waldorf approach to education will now be available to Utah’s children and families. She feels privileged to be a part of such a valuable work and is in awe daily of the blessing it is in her personal life to have had her interests, experiences, and passions all intersect into this endeavor.

BRITTANY HARRIS
ASSESSMENT & COMPLIANCE COORDINATOR

Brittany graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Mass Communications with an emphasis in Broadcast Journalism from the University of Utah.

While obtaining her degree, she had a unique opportunity to develop and instruct a Broadcast program as part of an after-school enrichment program. Eager to be involved, Brittany maintained and taught science and assisted with the English as a Second Language program.

These experiences instantly ignited her love for teaching. The spark continued after graduating from the University of Utah as Brittany moved to California and worked at a local elementary school as a Computer Lab Teacher. During this experience, she decided to obtain her Teaching Credential from California State University-San Marcos with an increased understanding of differentiating lesson plans and more importantly addressing various students’ needs and learning styles. While learning classroom management, the program improved her appreciation of creating hands-on lessons. subsequently, she obtained her Instructional Technology Endorsement from the University of North Carolina Wilmington.

After having her daughter, Brittany developed a true appreciation and understanding of child development and the need to embrace the individual child as a whole. She further understood that each child progresses at his or her own developmental pace socially, emotionally, and physically while expressing his or herself in many forms.

Brittany’s journey into Waldorf Education started when her daughter was in a public Kindergarten. She watched the spark of childhood slowly dissipate and the stress of academics being brought too early and too fast began to take its toll.

Brittany later obtained her Waldorf Certification from Gradalis in 2018. Brittany continues to feel honored, humbled, and inspired to be a part of the Waldorf movement working side by side with an amazingly talented and kindhearted staff and students. Brittany looks forward to continuing her position as the Assessment Coordinator and Traffic Director. The highlight of each day is watching and monitoring progress of all the students (big or small).

In her spare time, she enjoys yoga, long walks, and going to see any theater productions.

Heather Campbell has been involved in both administration and teaching special education in a multi-campus charter school and prior to this she taught in a Park City charter school and the Grand County School District to children of all grade levels and with disabilities from mild to severe. After receiving her Master’s degree in Education from the University of Utah in 2012, Heather taught distance education classes for the University of Utah to teachers and graduate students in rural areas around the state. Heather currently lives in Park City, Utah with her husband and two boys. She previously resided in Moab, UT where she began her teaching career. Heather and her family spend their free time river rafting, skiing, biking, hiking and traveling. Being involved in volunteer work in both Moab and Park City is important to her and helps her stay connected to the communities. Prior to becoming a teacher Heather was a policy analyst and legislative director in medical associations in Massachusetts and California.

KARA SALISBURY
ADMINISTRATIVE DIRECTOR

Kara Salisbury graduated from Brigham Young University with a Bachelor’s degree in elementary education. Her first teaching experience was in 6th grade in Northern California, working largely with children of migrant farm workers. Returning to Utah, she changed career tracks and became an administrative assistant to a hospital administrator. After five years of assistant experience in increasingly responsible roles in the healthcare, finance, and hospitality industries, she left to stay at home with her two daughters over the next nine years.

With her children in school all day, Kara felt a pull to return to school herself. After assisting in middle school classrooms for a year and a half, she felt incredibly lucky to learn of the founding of a Waldorf school on the Wasatch Front, in need of an administrative assistant. Combining her love of being in a school setting with her strengths in organization and attention to detail, she is thrilled to join the Wasatch Charter School team.

Adam Woods (aka Woody) moved to Utah in 2018 from California. After many years in the corporate world, most recently in publishing, he decided it was time to leave and fulfill his life long desire to be a teacher.
Since he raised all of his children in Waldorf and since his wife is a Waldorf teacher, he knew that he wanted to teach in a Waldorf classroom. He has a bachelors degree in Business, currently working on his Waldorf certificate and has plans on pursuing a Master in Education.

Bio coming soon

Mrs. Slater has been teaching grades k-5 since 2001 in Utah public schools.  She loves helping each child feel empowered and valued, just as they are.  
Her husband, their dog, and their 3 boys love outdoor activities like camping, hiking, biking, and skiing.
She is honored to be part of the Wasatch Waldorf community and looks forward to this new chapter of her life.

I was born above the Great Lakes in the city, and raised above the Great Lakes in the woods. My first education was in plants and colours, learning to balance light and dark tones by moving around quilt blocks in the moonlight, and learning how to shoot down pinecones with a .22 rifle so as to map their contribution to the genetic diversity of their old growth forest. Living off-grid but attending school throughout high school helped me become a good listener and snowshoer, and also quiet canoer. When I moved south to go to university, one of the toughest things to get used to was the humming of the fridge all night long.

I have loved language and languages my whole life, am fluent in French, studied Italian and Latin, and minored in Arabic for my bachelor’s in linguistics. I have been involved in publishing in various roles for a couple decades, writing and editing books, magazines, and online content. That has taken a backseat role, however, as I have developed my most abiding love and interest—human development—while raising three children with my husband. Over the years, I have started a grade school French choir, been PTA president of a middle school, taught in Montessori preschool, run a neighbourhood writing camp, held weekly winter nature school for 7th graders, and taught skills of all kinds to kids of all ages. 

During the pandemic I found myself in Wasatch’s Kinderhouse helping with preschool, and knew I had found home. I am thrilled and humbled and full of fiery enthusiasm to teach the Praesepe class this fall. 

Katie has her Masters of Arts in Education from Castleton University. While in school, Katie worked as the Assistant Ice Hockey Coach for Castleton’s NCAA Division III, Women's Ice-Hockey team. Katie graduated from the University of New Hampshire with her Bachelors in Psychology and a minor in Coaching. At the University of New Hampshire, she was a four-year member of the Women's Ice-Hockey team.  

Ms. Katie is currently teaching a small Intervention Class and working in the Lotus class at Wasatch.  Before arriving at Wasatch Charter School, Katie worked as an ESP for Park City School District’s Transition program and as a Behavior Technician for two years, mainly working with elementary students. 

Outside of the classroom, Katie loves to spend time with her family (usually sharing a meal), mountain bike, backcountry ski, backpack, camp, rock climb, swim and stargaze all with her husband and dog, Goose!

I am very excited to be continuing my calling to teach at Wasatch Charter School and graduating to the Fifth Grade with our Sequoia Class family. While spending the last four years in the Waldorf community as a parent and teacher, I continue to feel the strong sense of community and values, particularly the school’s dedication to building our children’s capacity to think and strengthening the will to persevere in any environment. I am looking forward to find ways to embed these values in my own teaching practices and continue my professional development.

Before joining Wasatch Charter School, I have had the honor of serving our country as a Marine, spending time across the United States and overseas in places like Japan, Tonga, Thailand, Germany, Romania, Spain, Italy, and Iraq. During this time and prior, I have been blessed with positive, kindhearted leadership and love from my parents, teachers, and military leaders. They all focused on my capacity to persevere and think. Hence, I will continue that trajectory for our children while nurturing a collaborative learning environment built on trust and compassion where everyone is treated with dignity and respect regardless of his or her positions, views, interests, and experiences.

I spent most of my childhood in the rural area of northeast Georgia and earned my Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Georgia. Upon graduating, I worked for the Taiwanese Consulate Office in Atlanta for three years, then headed off for island life in Hawaii. There, I collaborated with general education and special education teachers, therapists, and parents to offer an environment of healthy growth and meaningful education to children who had intensive sensory needs and language difficulties. The children I worked for, and the educators I worked alongside of, taught me so much about compassion and the value of our attentiveness to one another.  

After four and half years on Maui, we moved on to the Boston area, looking to find our forever home. In Boston, I explored my love for animals and the field of science. I became a veterinary technician, a position which I continued through our move to Salt Lake City in 2015. My most recent work in the animal health field was with a local physical rehabilitation and acupuncture clinic for animals. Since being in Salt Lake City, I have also completed a 1,000-hour yoga therapy training course and find joy helping others through breathing, mantra, movement and meditation techniques from yogic traditions.

I found Wasatch Waldorf Charter School and the holistic pedagogy I had been longing for, in 2017. I began teaching Grade 3 with Class Ursa. I graduated from the Gradalis’ Waldorf teacher training program in 2019 and have a level 1 Utah teaching license, working toward a level 2 license. I am dedicated to the holistic and healing education that Waldorf schools bring to their communities and am passionate about healthy growth and development that Waldorf pedagogy provides. I feel blessed to have found a school community full of people who value presence and strive together toward understanding and well-being for themselves and others. I feel I have found my place and am happy to call Salt Lake City, Utah home.

Rhea Howarth grew up in Maine exploring the woods behind her home while searching for fairies and hidden treasure. As a child she was always playing or reading. When she took breaks from her favorite books, she participated in drama, choirs, tennis and swimming.  

Rhea received a Bachelor of Science from BYU-Idaho where she studied creative writing, microbiology and cake decorating. After graduating, Rhea and her husband moved to Salt Lake City where they had two daughters. 

Rhea has worked as a swim instructor, cake decorator and restaurant manager. Rhea enjoys writing children’s stories, reading, crafting and hiking. 

In 2018 Rhea came to work at Wasatch Charter School. There she found her home in Early Childhood Education. Rhea has her level 1 teaching license and is currently enrolled in Waldorf teacher training through Gradalis. Rhea is very excited to begin teaching Kindergarten this year.

My name is Spencer Dirats, and I am the grade 8 teacher of the Aspen Class. I am also the Peer Tutoring coordinator and working on creating leadership opportunities for our middle school students.  

Prior to my arrival at WCS, I was a high school foreign languages and leadership teacher in the northeast. I came to Utah for the start of the 2017-2018 school year with the hopes of finding a school community that better aligned with my personal teaching philosophy and to dive deeper into the world of alpine ski racing - my other passion. I am ecstatic to report that I have found both. I cannot imagine any school being a better fit for me than WCS.

I am also a coach on the Brighton Ski Team, and that occupies most of my time outside school. When I'm not working with my students or my athletes, you can find me on the road in the wildest outdoor spaces that the West has to offer gathering fodder for lessons about environmental ethics and outdoor advocacy!

Tesia Brown grew up in a Waldorf community in Central British Columbia, and attended the Kelowna Waldorf School.

Following high school and a year of travel Tesia attended The American Eurythmy School in Northern California, completing her training in 2009. After two years of teaching and travel Tesia returned to school and completed a BA in Theater at Acadia University, as well as her Waldorf Teacher Training at Antioch University, New England. While in school she continued to teach blocks at both the Kelowna Waldorf School and the South Shore Waldorf School.


She became the founding teacher in a small Waldorf middle/high school initiative in rural Nova Scotia where she taught for two years. She and her husband Danny made the great trek across the continent to join the Wasatch Charter School community. Tesia feels very blessed to have the opportunity to work with such wonderful children.

Bio coming soon

Music has been a very large part of Bryan’s life from an early age. He began studying piano at age 5, progressing quickly to add violin and voice, and also organ. 

Bryan earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Music from the University of Utah, with emphasis in Organ Performance. Bryan studied with renowned organist Linda Margetts and has accompanied choirs across Europe. As a vocalist, Bryan has sung with world class choirs, including the University of Utah Singers and the Salt Lake Choral Artists. Bryan’s work as section leader (Baritone) in the University Singers assisted in the choir winning the Grand Prize at the Florilege Vocal de Tour, international choral competition in Tours, France. This qualified the University Singers to participate in the Grand Prix of World Singing held in Tolosa, Spain the following year, where they again took the grand prize. Bryan has taught orchestras in various public schools through Riverton Music, where he regularly composes his own arrangements for his orchestras. 

Bryan also teaches piano, violin, and cello privately. As an outdoor enthusiast, Bryan enjoys a wide range of activities including backpacking, hunting, canoeing, fly fishing, and fly tying. In recognition of his artistic abilities and attention to detail, he has been invited to be a guest fly tier multiple years at both the Wasatch and the East Idaho Fly Tying Expos. 

Bryan is the recipient of the Silver Beaver award through the Boy Scouts of America. Bryan enjoys spending his leisure time with his wife and 4 children.

Senora Susanna has a BA in English and Spanish from BYU and has lived overseas in Venezuela, Ecuador, and Guatemala for a total of 12 years, where she developed a great love and appreciation for Spanish and Latin American culture. She has taught Spanish for over twenty years in public, private, and charter schools, as well as private classes and tutoring. Spanish teaching is her passion - so much so, that students from years ago still remember Spanish they learned through her songs, games and activities.

I grew up on a little farm in a little town called Trout Creek, Utah, population: 50. We did not have electricity or phone lines. I attended a one-room school, grades kindergarten through 4th. We moved into town when I was 10 years old and had to transition from the smallest elementary school west of the Mississippi to the largest elementary school west of the Mississippi. I survived culture shock, made it through middle school, high school, and college with very few scars.

I married the love of my life, a Marine, and we traveled and made the road our home. We had 4 beautiful children and now have 6 beautiful grandchildren.

I taught school in North Carolina, Kansas and Okinawa, Japan before coming back to Utah to teach 3rd grade and then Library Science.

I am honored to be the Librarian at Wasatch and work with so many unique and talented students.

Mr. Keenan studied Physical Education and Kinesiology in college earning a Bachelor in Science degree. Prior to working at Wasatch, he taught Physical Education at a high school. He also has been a snowboard instructor for the last 15 years; coaching freestyle, training instructors, and teaching in different countries.

Playing games and being active is what he's all about! Various hobbies include rock climbing, hiking, camping, hunting, fishing, snowboarding, and soccer. This will be his 4th year at Wasatch. He's also our school's Athletic Director and helps coach the Archery Team.

Jennifer Samuelson has been a knitting and crocheting for over 25 years, she is a book artist and letterpress printer and holds an MFA in theatre. She came to Waldorf education over 15 years ago when her oldest daughter began attending a Waldorf school in Houston, Texas.

After many years as a Waldorf homeschooler, Jennifer moved from Texas to Utah with her family and began volunteering and working at Wasatch. In her free time, she enjoys spending time with her husband and five children, reading, crafting and taking long naps!

Jill Bell has a Bachelor of Arts Degree in English with a minor in French from Minnesota State University in Mankato, MN. She has co-owned and operated Bell Organic Farm with her husband David since 1998. Her interests include hiking, rock climbing, and cooking. She and her husband have 3 children ages 14, 9, and 3. Jill grew up in a small farm community in South Dakota where she and her family cultivated a large garden every year. She has always enjoyed canning and preserving the harvest with her mother and grandmother. Now she loves passing this tradition on to her children and looks forward to sharing this knowledge with the Wasatch Charter School community.

Raven Garland completed her Master of Music Degree from the University of Massachusetts. She then went on to complete both an artistic and therapeutic training in eurythmy at the Eurythmy School of Spring Valley and the Therapeutic Eurythmy Training of North America, respectively.
Raven has taught eurythmy to people of all ages in Waldorf Schools and public settings. She has also taught as a Waldorf Class teacher and is currently adjunct faculty at the Therapeutic Eurythmy Training of North America.

Mr. Keenan studied Physical Education and Kinesiology in college earning a Bachelor in Science degree. Prior to working at Wasatch, he taught Physical Education at a high school. He also has been a snowboard instructor for the last 15 years; coaching freestyle, training instructors, and teaching in different countries.

Playing games and being active is what he's all about! Various hobbies include rock climbing, hiking, camping, hunting, fishing, snowboarding, and soccer. This will be his 4th year at Wasatch. He's also our school's Athletic Director and helps coach the Archery Team.

Mr. Burke earned a degree from Utah Valley University in Spanish, and minored in Latin American Studies and Global Intercultural Relations. During his time at UVU, he served as the Language Department representative for three years as part of the UVUSA, was a TA for the late Judge Anthony Terry, taught Political Science while under Judge Terry’s supervision, and was an advocate of the LGBTQ community during its inaugural year. Mr. Burke taught PE and Adaptive PE in the Salt Lake District for two years, as well as coached football for Highland and super league football teams. His love for teaching and coaching brought him to Wasatch as a substitute during the 2018-‘19 school year. He came onboard as a full time teacher this year teaching Spanish part time and in Lotus class part time. He now is a full time Lotus class teacher. In addition to teaching, he coaches the boys & girls basketball teams and will soon coach the ultimate frisbee team in the spring. Coach Burke played a wide variety of high school sports and went on to play college and semi-professional football. He worked for the state at JJS, umpired baseball, worked in sales, and ultimately ended up deciding that teaching was his calling. Mr. Burke enjoys the snow and winter sports including snowboarding and skiing. During the summer he spends much of his time at Lake Powell and enjoys hiking and spending time with his wife, family, friends and dog.

Music has been a very large part of Bryan’s life from an early age. He began studying piano at age 5, progressing quickly to add violin and voice, and also organ. Bryan earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Music from the University of Utah, with emphasis in Organ Performance. Bryan studied with renowned organist Linda Margetts and has accompanied choirs across Europe. As a vocalist, Bryan has sung with world class choirs, including the University of Utah Singers and the Salt Lake Choral Artists. Bryan’s work as section leader (Baritone) in the University Singers assisted in the choir winning the Grand Prize at the Florilege Vocal de Tour, international choral competition in Tours, France. This qualified the University Singers to participate in the Grand Prix of World Singing held in Tolosa, Spain the following year, where they again took the grand prize. Bryan has taught orchestras in various public schools through Riverton Music, where he regularly composes his own arrangements for his orchestras. Bryan also teaches piano, violin, and cello privately. As an outdoor enthusiast, Bryan enjoys a wide range of activities including backpacking, hunting, canoeing, fly fishing, and fly tying. In recognition of his artistic abilities and attention to detail, he has been invited to be a guest fly tier multiple years at both the Wasatch and the East Idaho Fly Tying Expos. Bryan is the recipient of the Silver Beaver award through the Boy Scouts of America. Bryan enjoys spending his leisure time with his wife and 4 children.

Adam Woods (aka Woody) moved to Utah in 2018 from California. After many years in the corporate world, most recently in publishing, he decided it was time to leave and fulfill his life long desire to be a teacher.
Since he raised all of his children in Waldorf and since his wife is a Waldorf teacher, he knew that he wanted to teach in a Waldorf classroom. He has a bachelors degree in Business, currently working on his Waldorf certificate and has plans on pursuing a Master in Education.