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My name is Renee Anderson and this is my third year serving students the Rocklin Academy Family of Schools. For two years, I taught Visual art classes for middle school students at Rocklin Academy Gateway. Now I am excited for my new role at Western Sierra Collegiate Academy as the Photography and Yearbook teacher.  

I have been teaching for almost 16 years in the United States and abroad. My teaching career began with IT integration classes in an elementary school in Minnesota. I then moved to Doha, Qatar where I worked in a similar capacity for early elementary students. I then had the amazing opportunity to start a digital design program at the high school level of the American School of Doha. I taught Graphic Design, Digital Photography, and Videography for three years until the program was fully developed as part of my Curriculum and Instruction Thesis for my Graduate Studies. 

After working in Doha, I took a sabbatical year to shoot a film in Barcelona (it was accepted to an Arabic Film Festival later that year!) After the film I worked on an NGO project in Lebanon to help boost awareness for a recycling program in the mountains outside of Beirut. It was a great year of learning new skills outside of the classroom. 

I then took on a role teaching middle school and high school robotics in Madrid, Spain. Finally, I decided to return to the United States and work to help a high school in Green Bay, WI to become an authorized International Baccalaureate School for a Middle Years Program (MYP.) There, I tapped into my curriculum background to help all subject areas align their curriculum to the MYP in order for our Authorization visit. In June of 2019, we became authorized and my family decided we wanted to leave the harsh winters of Wisconsin and set our eyes on Sacramento, CA.

We packed up the van and brought our toddler twins to our new home. Throughout all of the chaos of a pandemic, I managed to find my teaching home in the Rocklin Academy. I align philosophically with this family of schools and the leadership therein and I am proud and grateful to apply all of my random and unique experiences to this role. The RAFOS community is one of the most supportive and nurturing for which I have had the honor to serve across the whole planet.