Growing up, Choir Director Kevin Cornwell II never wanted to be a choir teacher. He had no interest in music education, although music had always captivated him. His father, Kevin Cornwell I, was — and still is — the choir director at Cornwell II’s middle and high school and an organist for their church. Cornwell II’s love of music began when he joined his father on drums in church.
“Church was a huge influence for me in music,” Cornwell II said. “I was four when I started. My dad taught me one basic drum beat, and I basically took it from there.”
In his freshman year of high school, Cornwell II played drums alongside his father’s choir at the Michigan State Choir Festival. Before the performance, Cornwell II accidentally wound up in the choir warmup room and heard his father conducting the choir in Eric Whitacre’s “Sleep.”
“It blew my mind. I was so mesmerized by the harmonies that they were creating and the chords that they were singing. I couldn’t believe it,” Cornwell II said. “Growing up, all my life, I’ve been going to choir concerts, and I thought they were so boring. It wasn’t until that moment when I heard them sing that piece, and at that moment, something clicked.”
Cornwell II joined choir the next year as a sophomore in high school. After graduating from Oakland University with a bachelor’s degree in Vocal Music Education in 2023, he briefly served as an interim choir director at Detroit School of Arts. He went on to get his master’s degree at the University of California, Los Angeles and taught choir there for the past two years. This is his third year teaching.
Through teaching, Cornwell II said he hopes to give students the experience they will need to pursue music — helping them arrange pieces and exposing them to a diverse array of genres.
“The best musicians are the most versatile musicians,” Cornwell II said.
Initially, eighth and 10th grade English teacher Belinda Eleftheriades applied to college as an art major. She had never been interested in literature until she read Kate Chopin’s “The Awakening” for an English class. Suddenly, she was hooked. Interested in pursuing English education, Eleftheriades shadowed an English professor at a nearby community college during her senior year of college. By the end of the course, the college offered her a teaching position for the fall.
Eleftheriades taught community college English classes for five years before officially getting her teaching certification at Teachers College, Columbia University. Soon after, she got a master’s degree in English education and began teaching at high schools. She taught on the East Coast before moving to Los Angeles with her husband in 2013.
“I feel like [Archer is] the perfect fit for me in terms of my teaching style,” Eleftheriades said. “I like that Archer is both academic and fosters this joyful spirit.”
In the past, Eleftheriades often taught 150 students a day. She tries to emphasize discussion and personal connection in her classroom,and appreciates that these are already built into Archer’s curriculum.
“I really do a lot of student-centered discussion,” Eleftheriades said. “It just gives [students] so much more confidence, and it gives you the ability to really speak to anyone at any time as you’re going through your life, through the world, in different jobs, in college — you’ll use these skills everywhere.”
Outside the classroom, Eleftheriades enjoys salsa dancing and traveling with her family. Of all her passions, teaching has remained especially important to her because it reflects the belief that both teachers and students must keep learning.
“You’re just evolving all the time,” Eleftheriades said. “I don’t know that other jobs have that opportunity and spontaneity. You can do something totally different every day … I just like trying new things and experimenting with things. So I think it’s an invigorating job.”
Science teacher Peter Brutschea teaches all non-accelerated 10th grade chemistry and 11th grade biology classes. Brutschea was equally drawn to both subjects, which drew him to the Chemical Biology major at Saint Joseph’s University.
“I chose chemistry specifically because it is a fascinating subject … there’s always something new to learn. And I think that’s the best part about it,” Brutschea said. “When I wasn’t taking a chemistry course, I was taking a biology course, because I found both subjects to be equally and differently interesting.”
After graduating from college, Brutschea obtained his EMT certification.
“I was an EMT during the pandemic … in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and I decided that I wanted to get into teaching because I missed science and engaging in a community with people who want to learn,” Brutschea said.
Brutschea is happy to be in Los Angeles’s warmer climate after living in Boston for so long. He enjoys the outdoors and is excited for Arrow Week in the spring. In his free time, Brutschea spends time with his dog, Kobe, and plays basketball.
He said the enthusiasm of Archer students to learn is what drew him to Archer.
“I was drawn to Archer by this palpable sense of culture and community,” Brutschea said. “I knew from the moment I stepped on campus that it was a special place.”
Thirty-five years ago Math Teaching Apprentice Christopher Paulus started at his first job as a teacher. With teaching breaks in between to pursue other passions, he is now joining Archer as the Financial Algebra, statistics and Integrated Math II teacher.
Over those years, Paulus said he has worked in restaurants, finance and camps. Paulus said he always knew being a teacher was in his future because of his admiration for his own teachers.
“I just remember really thinking my high school teachers were incredible, and so I think it was there [that I knew I wanted to be a teacher],” Paulus said. “In college, I saw some professors that I thought were so wonderful, and I admired them. I wanted to be like them to a degree that was possible.”
Outside of teaching, you can find Paulus playing basketball, taking a walk in hidden spaces around Los Angeles, traveling or learning something new.
“I still enjoy learning — we have to pace ourselves, right? We have work responsibilities, school responsibilities,” Paulus said. “But when I can, those are fun things, and being with family and friends. Of course, that’s always a pleasure.”
Paulus said he hopes to ensure his students not only learn the skill he teaches, but also enjoy themselves while learning.
“I mean, it’s a balancing act, right? Sometimes it’s uncomfortable, but that would be a great joy if students feel like ‘I enjoyed that, and I learned something that I’m supposed to learn,’” Paulus said. “And quite frankly, I would like to enjoy myself, too.”
After ten years of working in museums, galleries and camps, arts teacher Dulce Ibarra realized they wanted to do more with their teaching degree. Ibarra decided to become a full-time ceramics teacher and joined the Advanced Study art program at Archer.
Having explored various art forms — including drawing, painting and even studying art history — Ibarra discovered a deeper connection to ceramics.
“Whenever I touch a material, I think about the history of it. What does it mean? And I think that clay has a very, very long history; it’s literally our Earth,” Ibarra said. “I think that because of that, I grew more attached to it. I think that’s what helped motivate me to actually be in clay a little bit more.”
Before Archer, Ibarra worked at a community college, where they said they enjoyed preparing students for university. Seeking a similar environment, Ibarra chose Archer to continue to empower and prepare students for their next adventure.
“I’m someone who’s really community motivated. It is important for me to feel like I’m in a community with people,” Ibarra said. “I really think it’s important for me as an instructor to feel like I can be a guiding path for students.”
Although this is Science Teaching Apprentice L Retterer’s first year teaching in an official classroom, it is not their first time spreading scientific knowledge. For the past five years, Retterer has presented in schools about astronomy and cosmic discoveries as one of NASA’s Solar System Ambassadors.
“I saw one of [Carl Sagan‘s] videos from ‘Cosmos‘ when I was little, and it blew me away,” Retterer said. “I just got really into reading every book … about space. I loved knowing all the really obscure facts about planets … I used to be able to tell you the exact number of moons every planet in our solar system had.”
Retterer majored in mathematics at the University of Southern California with minors in astronomy and themed entertainment. They initially planned to major in physics but switched after realizing they could only take certain advanced math classes as a mathematics major.
“I thought at first I wanted to go into research,” Retterer said. “But through the NASA program, I found that I loved getting to talk to students about space and just in general about new things and getting to share my knowledge made me so excited.”
Retterer said they were drawn to Archer because it reminded them of their own all-girls high school in New Jersey.
“What I really loved most about my high school was just the sisterhood that I felt with all of my friends — everyone was so comfortable and everyone felt so inspired to just work really hard,” Retterer said. “Everyone left there … confident that if they came up against something they absolutely had no idea how to do, they’d be able to figure it out. “
Arts Department Chair Joe Schenck has been a teacher since high school. Growing up with two teachers for parents, he started teaching gymnastics and dance as a high school student.
Schenck’s love for performing evolved when he began to teach.
“I knew I wanted to perform, but I also knew that teaching the thing that you’re doing helps you understand it better,” Schenck said. “The more that I was doing both the performing and the teaching at the same time, one kept informing the other. The way that I taught something in class helped me to understand it better as a performer.”
Once Schenck understands Archer culture and the school’s traditions he said, he plans to dive into his influence as the Arts Department Chair.
“I can start to be a little more creative and a little more influential,” Schenck said. “I can think about things that I value as an educator and artist and bring that into my work as well.”
After primarily creating dance shows for the last few years of his career, Schenck said he is excited to get back into theater.
“I also love to watch it when I can tell my students are making sense or processing the world around them with their art form,” Schenck said. “Not just sitting there and journaling about it, but using a theater scene to explore how they think about or what they believe about something.”
Previously the assistant tennis coach, Athletic Coordinator Charlotte Goldbaum is begining her second year at Archer. Originally from New York, she achieved her bachelor’s degree at University of California, Los Angeles and her master’s degree at University of Washington.
Goldbaum has played tennis since she was five years old and joined the tennis club and the ultimate frisbee club at UCLA. She said that working as a coach and playing sports her whole life drew her to her position at Archer.
“My time as a coach at Archer is really what pushed me into pursuing this kind of career,” Goldbaum said. “I loved being around students and student athletes and helping students find their passion through sports.”
Because of Goldbaum’s coaching history, she said she applies that experience to her job as the athletics coordinator.
“I understand the needs of coaches, so I think that really helps me kind of shift my mindset and focus on how I can support coaches,” Goldbaum said.
Reflecting on her favorite aspects of coaching sports, Goldbaum said getting to know students and seeing them grow as athletes is a highlight.
“[I think my favorite part is] really getting to understand what their goals are,” Goldbaum said, “and learning about their passions and helping them find a way to incorporate those goals and passions in whatever sport they’re playing.”
In learning about World Language Teacher Megan Ulmert, her passion for French, her Louisiana roots and her studies at New York University Paris may come up. However, what may be less known is her traveling and her fascination with foraging for mushrooms.
Ulmert began to expand in her French skills, she won a scholarship at a French convention to study in Nova Scotia, Canada.
“[The study abroad] changed my life,” Ulmert said. “If I hadn’t have gotten the scholarship and traveled to Nova Scotia, maybe I wouldn’t have had that taste of freedom and understanding new cultures.”
While living in Sweden with her family for year during the COVID-19 lockdown, Ulmert took a Swedish class to learn more of the language. She ended up learning more than just Swedish — she also got to be put back into the students’ perspective of learning a brand new language.
“[The class] was a great reminder, as a teacher of language, how scary it can be when you’re on that side of the classroom,” Ulmert said. “So I bring that experience with me as I’m teaching beginners and early learners of the language.”
When looking for a new school, Ulmert’s said Archer checked all the boxes. She previously taught at Sarah Lawrence College.
“Just reading about Archer and the way it empowers women really touched me,” Ulmert said. “[…] And then I saw the job opening and I thought, ‘Oh, this is exactly where I want to be.'”
Fitness coach Danielle Daskalakis is more than a coach — she’s a player, too. Although she has taught high schoolers for eight years, she is also one of the top professional female handball players in the world. She holds titles in one-wall, three-wall and four-wall handball, making her one of few players globally to have titles in the three iterations.
“I have a big family, and I was the oldest out of a decent amount of cousins … I guess I always kind of played a teacher leadership role whenever we were playing games or something like that,” Daskalakis said. “And then that kind of naturally grew.”
Originally from New York, Daskalakis appreciates the diversity of Los Angeles’s landscape. She likes to be active outdoors, whether at the handball courts of Venice Beach or hiking.
Daskalakis was initially interested in athletic training but felt she would rather teach. She said she enjoys the team building aspects of teaching fitness classes and seeing how the skills can be useful when students begin playing sports in later months.
“I’m excited to see eighth grade and sixth grade towards the end of the semester … when we start incorporating the actual volleyball games and basketball games and pickleball,” Daskalakis said. “I want to see how that’s going to translate and if they realize it or not.”
