Meet the Teachers
Founders of Community Core: Social and Emotional Learning Curriculum
Robert Gallo
Creator and Founder
Rob Gallo has been a leader in Experiential Education for more than 20 years, dedicating his career to helping students, teachers and families build stronger communities. With a background in Psychology, Secondary Education, and Mental Health, Rob has inspired students and staff with a unique perspective and training focused on social-emotional literacy. As Founder of Driftwood Ranch, Rob has hosted groups of school principals, gang-affiliated youth, college students, and student leadership organizations; all of whom experienced Community Core, a philosophy and method for awakening the community spirit.
With the creation of Join the Community in 2011, Rob was able to unite all of his passions under one organization. Since then, Join the Community has been running Community Core programs in schools across the country, changing the way educators think about their "duty" and their students' leadership capacity.
Rob resides in San Diego with his wife Bri and his two daughters, Lexi and Lola, and spends his summers back at the place where it all started, Driftwood Ranch in Northfield, NH.
Sarah Herman
Head of School at O.S.S., a Community Core School
Sarah began serving as the OSS Head of School in 2013. Her experiences growing up at Interlocken International summer camp inform her belief that a powerful education must inspire curiosity, a desire to explore and an appreciation for failure and reflection. She joined Teach for America, worked in the New York City public school system for four years, and completed her M.Ed. in elementary education at Bank Street College. She then returned to her summer camp roots and served as director of Windsor Mountain International for eight years before continuing her studies at Harvard University and earning a M.Ed. in school leadership.
Sarah brings an insider view of the education community and has been invaluable in helping to bridge the gap between the camp mindset and school community needs. Sarah has been running Community Core programs as head of school for Our Sisters' School in New Bedford, NH for the past four years. She has seen firsthand the tremendous impact that explicit teaching of social-emotional tools and the Community Core "gray area" staff training have made in the lives of her students and faculty.
Community Core
What does it mean to be a Community Core Teacher?
It means you are ready to go on a journey that goes far beyond the realm of academics. A journey that allows you to mentor students in an authentic way, while providing real solutions to help them navigate some of life’s most difficult moments.
Community Core is a comprehensive approach to building a stronger, healthier, and more inclusive setting for education. Teachers, administrators and parents have the tough task of preparing students to compete in the job market of tomorrow. They need math, science, writing abilities and other skills if they are to effectively secure a place in the college of their dreams and in the field of their choice. However, we all know that careers will constitute only a portion of the student’s life. The rest will be made up of relationships of many kinds. They will be partners, friends and members of many communities. As a society we are constantly seeking to improve upon the methods we use to teach and develop traditional school subjects. At times we have neglected to put the same energy and resources into developing a well-rounded student, paying particular attention to their interpersonal skills. We expect students to treat each other with respect, but do students really know the steps to take? Do they truly understand the implications of their behavior? We hope that teens develop strong self-esteem, but do we give them the tools? Do we give them a venue to express their views on the issues that affect their lives every day? Most teachers seem to agree that digital social media can be a potential source for bullying and an immense distraction. How many schools are addressing this with the care they give to a core subject curriculum?
Meet the Teachers
Katie Mosca
Katie Mosca is a 5th and 6th grade STEAM teacher and 7th and 8th Grade Advisor at Our Sisters’ School; a tuition free independent all-girls school located in New Bedford, MA. Her experience in education started at Driftwood Ranch, where she developed her mentoring skills through the Community Core lense.
Katie transitioned into formal education when she began teaching at Our Sisters’ School, applying the mentor skills learned at Driftwood, to her practice as a classroom teacher. She soon recognized that relationships are built through shared understandings based on a common language. With Community Core as that common language, she is able to provide students with the blueprints they need to develop social and emotional literacy. Armed with Community Core, she is a one-on-one SEL mentor, and supports staff development with gray area training. She subscribes to the belief that academic success can only happen when a students’ emotional needs are met, and her ultimate goal as an educator is to help students build the skills they need to realize their own excellence, and to then support the excellence in others.
Heather Win
Director of Curriculum and Implementation for Community Core.
A veteran educator in public, independent, and charter schools, Heather Win joined the Community Core team in 2012 to develop a teacher-friendly Community Core student curriculum and personalized staff support system that extends and supports the experiential learning that happens at Community Core workshops and Driftwood retreats.
Heather lives with her husband and two young boys in Vermont and practices Community Core methods five days a week in her classes and in the gray areas at Winooski Middle and High School.
Jonathon Curtis-Resnik
Jonathan has worked with Community Core since its beginning. He has helped shape the curriculum by both knowing where it started and where it is today. Having attended Wesleyan University for an undergraduate degree and the University of Vermont for a post-baccalaureate degree, Jonathan brings his educational experience to this team and implements what he has learned to each of his educational roles. His view of education begins with the idea that an educator must help shape someone's character. It is the responsibility of teachers to not only teach academics but also teach the equally important social emotional skills.
Jonathan currently teaches Chemistry and is a member of the Learning Resource Center at La Jolla Country Day School in San Diego, CA. He has worked with both individual students, as well as with small groups, to practice and reinforce academic concepts, study skills, test preparation and planning. In his Chemistry classes, he is helping to reinvent the idea of experiential education in a scientific classroom. Before joining the LJCDS team in January 2018, Mr. Curtis-Resnik worked at Greenwich Country Day School in Greenwich, Connecticut and Our Sisters’ School in New Bedford, Massachusetts.
Have you evaluated your school’s Social and Emotional Literacy?
Community Core Founder, Rob Gallo, discusses how we work with schools to discover and improve the level of social-emotional literacy of staff and students by evaluating existing mission and value statements and helping to create accountability and support systems.
