Our Teachers and Staff

Birgit Priester (School Director)

Birgit was born and raised in a village near Koblenz, Germany. She graduated 1992 with a teaching degree for elementary and middle school in Germany. She has been teaching children and adults for many years both in Germany and the United States and is excited to share the German culture with the school community.

As the director of the school, she leads the board meetings and oversees administrative operations in the school.

Dr. Kandace Einbeck

Dr. Kandace was born in the US, and has lived at numerous places in Germany and Austria. She holds a Ph.D. in German. She has taught German language, literature and culture for more than 40 years in high schools, universities, the Goethe-Institut, and privately in the US, Germany, Austria and China.

She and her cat enjoy singing German songs, reading German novels, and baking and eating Austrian pastries.

Sabine Silk

Sabine was born in Mosbach, near Heidelberg, Germany. She obtained a teaching degree for elementary and middle school at the Pädagogische Hochschule Ludwigsburg. Sabine traveled to many places on the globe as a flight attendant for Lufthansa. She taught in elementary and middle schools in Ludwigsburg and Stuttgart.

She and her family lived for 9 years in Bahrain (Persian Gulf), where she tutored children and adults in German. In Colorado, Sabine worked in a special-needs school and tutored German privately. Her teaching philosophy is “learning something new is always fun”. Currently, Sabine fills in for teachers who need a substitute teacher.

Marion Szilagyi

Marion was raised and educated in Germany. Blessed with rewarding careers in Germany and the USA, she is bilingual and loves to share her deep understanding of language, culture, and business. People are her passion – on both sides of the Atlantic. A bilingual German native, former ranked Officer for the German Federal Ministry of Finance, she is teaching with enthusiasm paired with experience. A good combination for what you would like to achieve! Customized German language training is her specialty.

In her career as a private German teacher, she has enjoyed providing Fortune 500 executives and their families with the necessary tools to live and work in Germany, developing and teaching a 6-year on-site customized German program for a Denver global market leader in the solar industry, being part of the Corporate Training Department at Community College of Denver (CCD), and getting young minds excited about speaking German and appreciating the culture. Marion teaches adults at the German school.

Ulrike Leibfried

Ulrike received her teaching degree from Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich, Germany, where she taught English as a Second Language as well as P.E. throughout the 1990s. When her husband’s career brought them to Boulder in 2001, she started volunteering at her children’s elementary school and middle school.

When her children were attending high school, she helped them prepare for the Advanced Placement test in German, which they both did very well in. Since then she has had the pleasure of helping several BVSD students prepare for this test. Currently, Uli teaches children and adult classes.

Karen Howl, M. Ed.

Karen came to us from Fairfax County, VA 3 years ago where she worked in a public German Immersion school for many years. She is German-American with Ulm, in Baden -Württemberg, as her „home base“, having lived there for much of her childhood. Karen has taught both children and adults in both countries during a long tenure and many moves with the military.

She enjoys teaching and engaging all student populations in the language and culture of the German speaking countries!

Anna Ozimek

Anna grew up in the industrial city of Lodz in central Poland. One of her earliest childhood memories is listening to her grandfather’s songs and stories about his youth in Germany. The sound of German Christmas carols and the loss of the beloved grandpa early on were forming experiences for Anna‘s interest in the German language and culture. After high school, Anna moved to the West to study Comparative Literature and USA at the University Duisburg-Essen.

After her Magister degree and a translator certification, she headed to Bremerhaven to work in public and media relations for a museum of European emigration history to the US. Some years as a freelance journalist followed, as well as the publication of a book with a series of her articles for the Nordsee-Zeitung: “Von Menschen und Werften, About people and shipyards”.

In 2014, she followed her husband to Boulder. Her favorite quote is by one of the most important German reporters, Egon Erwin Kisch: “Nothing is more amazing than the simple truth, nothing is more exotic than our environment, nothing is more imaginative than objectiveness and there is nothing more spectacular in the world than the times we live in!”

Anna is a licensed administer of the A1 and A2 Level Goethe Institute Exam.

Nadine Reeve

Nadine was born in Klagenfurt, Austria and raised in a little village in Gurktal Valley which is in Austria as well. She first came to the USA 10 years ago as an Au Pair, she took care of 3 boys in Westhampton Beach, NY. She shared her culture and language with them.

Shortly after her Au pair year Nadine got married and has ever since lived and worked as a Professional Nanny in the USA. She worked for a number of families with different cultural backgrounds such as Thai, Dutch, Swedish, English, Australian, American and multiple German speaking families on Long Island and Manhattan, NY and since 2016 in Colorado. Nadine enjoys to spend time with children it brings her joy to observe how they learn and to teach them new skills such as art or language. She has learnt a lot about Waldorf and Montessori teaching while working as a Nanny and did a lot of self-study in topics such as child development and multiple different educational and parenting styles. 

Nadine is a new Mommy who enjoys drawing, painting and all other creative arts and going for hikes with her 3 dogs. 

Joy Kocher

Joy is an American who moved to Basel, Switzerland in 1990 with her Swiss husband. There, she obtained a teaching certificate from Cambridge University and an M.Ed from the University of Manchester, UK while learning German and Swiss German. She has 20 years experience teaching in the Swiss Public School System and was responsible for designing projects to bring English culture to the Swiss school children at her school. She also obtained diplomas from the University of Northwest Switzerland in adult education and career counseling.

In her free time, she and her husband enjoy all the outdoor sporting activities Colorado has to offer and spending time with family.

Leilani Spurlock

Leilani graduated from Indiana University in 2022 with a BA in Germanic Studies and a BM in Trumpet Performance. She is currently a first year masters student teaching first semester German at University of Colorado Boulder. Her research interests include gender representation in German media, German language pedagogy, and second language acquisition with a focus on sociocultural analysis of language.

Stephanie Fowler

Stephanie, born in former East Germany, graduated from University of Regensburg with a BA in German Studies and a minor in French Studies as well as History. During her time as a certified German instructor (DaF & DaZ) she worked with a number of students, all of different ages and cultural backgrounds, such as Syrian, Iranian, Afghan, Japanese, Korean, European and American.

Teaching a language did not just allow her to engage with new cultures within Germany, she also was able to live and work in different parts of the world like France and Boulder. Through meeting her husband and her work at the school she found a home here. Working with children/teens and seeing the world through their young eyes has been an inspiring new chapter in her life. 

Trevor Kenny

Trevor graduated from Montclair State University with a BA in Germanic Studies and a minor in Environmental Justice in 2021. He is currently in his last semester of graduate school and has taught multiple German language and history courses for the department. After graduating, Trevor hopes to teach German or Social Studies at a high school.

He loves teaching German because learning a language also means learning culture, history, and linguistics all in one.

Simone George

Born and raised in Münster, Germany, Simone first came to the USA as an exchange student in 1988: she lived with a host family in Maryland, attended high school for a year, and made lifelong friends. This experience ignited her passion for foreign languages and cultures, setting the foundation for her future endeavors.

Simone studied Law and Japanese in Germany, the Netherlands and Japan and enjoyed a fulfilling career in Tokyo, where she met her American husband. Their journey consequently led them to live in seven different countries around the world. Simone has two sons, whom she taught German at home. Her and her family moved to Boulder in the summer of 2022, as a family they enjoy the outdoors and spending time with friends.

Simone loves to get children and teenagers excited about speaking German and learning about German culture, especially when it involves baking German goodies!

Marina Häusermann

Marina was born and raised in Zurich, Switzerland. She holds an M.A. in Contemporary History and Social Anthropology and Certificates of Advanced Studies in Evaluation as well as Peacebuilding. Passionate about other cultures and languages, she has visited many different countries and even called some of them her home, such as Chile, Russia, France and the Palestinian Territories.

After graduating, she worked at the Swiss Embassy in Chile, at an International NGO and as an external consultant and evaluator of projects and programs for the public administration in Switzerland. Besides, she has been active as an independent historian and tour guide, offering city tours on women’s and gender history in Zurich and as an instructor and communication specialist at Girls* on Ice Switzerland, a program that offers free science and mountaineering expeditions for young women and which has a sister program in Boulder called Girls* on Rock. 

Marina recently moved to Boulder with her husband and enjoys teaching children and teens the German language and to share songs, games, literature, and traditions with them.

Louis Philip Alvarez

Phillip was born and raised in Thornton, Colorado and has been studying German for many years, earning his Bachelors of Arts in German Language, Literature and Culture and International Relations in 2023 from the University of Denver. In high school, he spent a month in Mühldorf am Inn on a language exchange called the German American Partnership Program through Ruperti Gymnasium which inspired him to continue with German into university. In 2022, he studied at the Free University of Berlin for a semester, living with a host family in Steglitz (and eating lots of currywurst).

Phillip has been enjoying tutoring German to a variety of students in college and outside of college and enjoys sharing the culture and language with everyone, making it a big part of his life.

Anna Bolik

Anna has lived in many different counties and grew up multi-lingual. She has a passion for the traditions and its unique differences of the countries that she has lived in. Professionally, Anna brings along many years of experience as trainer, presentation, communications & coaching skills. She knows how to engage participants into the different topics to result in an enjoyable, informative, and learning experience.

Rebecca Hacker

Rebecca was born in Germany and is an experienced teacher who has taught German, Spanish and geography at the undergraduate and graduate level in Germany, Central America and in the US. She serves on the board of the Boulder School for German Language and Culture.

Currently she is the Director of Education and Outreach at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, CO, responsible for the center’s public outreach and K-12 education activities, leading workforce development programs, and supporting the geoscience university community through faculty training and research sabbaticals. Rebecca has extensive experience in providing students and early career scientists with relevant skills and training to have successful careers in the geosciences.

She serves on several education and workforce related national boards, and is a leader in geoscience workforce development, advancement of diversity and promoting best mentoring practices. In addition to her graduate degree in geography and cultural anthropology from the University of Hamburg, Germany, Rebecca is a certified mediator and has extensive training in employment law, diversity, student mentoring, and counseling.

Gabriele

Gabriele was born in Austria and has traveled the world with her family. As a retired accountant, she supports our treasurer, Cheryl, in making the right choices regarding the school’s economic and financial decisions.

She is also the school’s dedicated librarian.

Dr. Regula Müller

Dr. Regula grew up in Basel, Switzerland and came to the US in 2006. She holds a Doctoral Degree in Pharmacy from the University of Basel and works as a Program Director for a large Clinical Research Organization.

She has been a board member of the school since January 2017 and is responsible for grant writing and the newsletter.

Cheryl Ward

Cheryl was born in the USA and is a CPA with 20 years’ experience in Accounting (corporate and government) and over 10 years’ experience in Internal Auditing and IT systems. She has served as Treasurer as well as Education Coordinator for various non-profit organizations.

Currently, Cheryl serves as Treasurer of the school, in addition to being a student at the school.

Gisela Barrett

Gisela was born and raised in the beautiful Allgäu in Bavaria. She grew up on a Dairy Farm and was trained as Preschool Teacher in Germany. In 1999 she moved to Colorado and received her Bachelors in Multimedia from CU Denver.

Gisela has been with the school since it’s beginning and serves as Registrar, responsible for course scheduling and registration. She is also the web/graphic designer and social media content creator for the school.

Dr. Barbara Ervens currently living in Clermont-Ferrand, France.

Pia Zeller
Organizer of the bookclub “Treffpunkt Lesen” and licensed administer of the A1 and A2 Level Goethe Institut Exam.

Chiara Conrad

We are very excited to welcome our German Intern Chiara Conrad from Mainz. She will support our children's and teen program in the fall and teach a conversation class for our adult learners.

Chiara is studying for her Masters in Education at the Johannes Gutenberg-Universität in Mainz. Since 2020 she has been working as a Substitute Teacher at the Geschwister-Scholl-Realschule.

Kellen Hafner
She is a licensed educator in Colorado with 5+ years of experience in the classroom, and strives to awaken the natural curiosity children have for the world around them.

Karina Herrmann

Karina was born in Mainz, Germany and was raised in Wiesbaden, Germany.

Jutta Weidenaar

Mrs. Weidenaar has been teaching German here in the US for over 20 years.

Angie Parham
She holds a BA in German and English, an MA in German, and an MA in Secondary English Education.

Dr. Charlotte Wolf

Charlotte has a Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Studies (Literature, Women's Studies, Instructional Technology) and an M.A. in German.