Exercising Minds

Ms. Dantas has been teaching for seventeen years as an English Language Arts teacher with the Garden Grove Unified School District in California. Her background is working with students learning English as a second language, working with "at risk youth" to inspire motivation to pursue their academic goals in an AVID program called AVID Axcel, established a successful Academic Pentathlon team on her school campus, working with youth that struggle with both reading and writing skills at their grade level, and she has taught seventh grade English Language Arts and ninth grade English Language Arts.

Ms. Dantas believes that learning takes a certain type of mindset and inspiration to model for students how they can establish their own academic goals to succeed within their lives. Ms. Dantas uses strategies to meet the individual needs of her students along with the content based Common Core National Standards. She uses positive and rigorous academic based conversation and writing frames to set the standard for communication in her classroom.

Academic Pentathlon Medals

Ms. Dantas holds a California Teaching Credential in English Language Arts from Chapman University. She has a combined degree from Chapman University in both English and Psychology. She attended the University of Irvine to gain her CLAD certification. She taught strategies to teachers working on their CLAD certification within her school district.

Ms. Dantas is continuously expanding upon her own academic success as a single mother she is still attending school and working towards a certification in Family Constellations, which is a therapy based modality established by Bert Helliger in Germany. This unique method of therapy allows an individual to overcome life challenges in a progressive healing style. Ms. Dantas feels that this non-talk therapy is opening her own skills to enhance upon her success to continuously meet the needs of her students. Because her own son struggles with reading and writing, she has taken the effort to work hard to guide him towards his own academic success. Ultimately, the challenge of helping her son, has become a benefit for the students she teaches.