The Brontide Story
My path into mathematics education began at home.
I started out educating my own children, and when my oldest really struggled with long division, I had to find another way to help him understand it. That search led me to resources such as Natural Math, where I discovered that mathematics could be taught very differently from the way I had learned it. It could be visual, playful, conceptual, creative, and connected.
That changed everything for me.
I became fascinated by how people actually learn mathematics — and especially by what happens when students struggle. Later, through my work in special education and alternative high schools, I came to believe that mathematics is a gatekeeper, whether we want it to be or not. Too many young people and adults quietly rule themselves out of careers, college programs, and opportunities because somewhere along the way they began to believe:
I’m just not a math person.
I wanted to help change that.
That is one reason I eventually chose to become a mathematics teacher, not only a special education teacher. I wanted students who had spent years believing they could not succeed in mathematics to experience something different: understanding, confidence, safety, belonging, and real success. Some of the moments I value most are watching students who entered an alternative high school unsure whether they even had a meaningful future begin to imagine college — and sometimes even imagine studying mathematics.
I will take that kind of success over money any day.
That conviction eventually became Brontide Educational Services.
Brontide means the low rumble of distant thunder. To me, it represents change that may begin quietly: a student notices a relationship, a teacher asks a different question, a family finally understands what is underneath a child’s struggle.
And then something shifts.
Understanding grows. Confidence returns. Possibilities open.
That is the work I want Brontide to do.
Why Brontide Exists
I believe too many students are unintentionally harmed by the way mathematics is sometimes taught.
When students struggle, they are often given more practice, more repetition, or increasingly simplified work. But sometimes the real problem is not effort or memory. The learner may be missing an underlying relationship, representation, concept, or connection that would finally make the mathematics make sense. Those experiences shape more than achievement. They shape mathematical identity.
A student who repeatedly experiences mathematics as confusion, speed, correction, or failure may eventually decide that mathematics simply does not belong to them. That belief can influence the classes they take, the careers they consider, whether they pursue college, and even how confidently they participate in their own children’s education later in life. Brontide exists to help interrupt that cycle.
I want schools, educators, and families to better understand the mathematics underneath student struggle — and respond in ways that build both mathematical understanding and mathematical identity.
The goal is bigger than helping a student pass a class.
It is helping learners see themselves as people who can think mathematically.
My Approach
At the center of my work is the belief that students need to belong in mathematics.
They need to feel intellectually safe enough to reason, make mistakes, ask questions, experiment with representations, explain unfinished thinking, and change their minds.
Our approach to teaching can strengthen that identity — or slowly erode it.
When a student struggles, I want us to look underneath the performance:
What does this learner understand?
Where does their reasoning make sense?
What mathematical relationship may be missing?
What representation could make the idea visible?
What prior understanding needs to be strengthened?
How can we help the student connect what they know to what comes next?
My work brings together conceptual mathematics, research, student thinking, instructional design, intervention, and systems-level support to help educators answer those questions more intentionally.
Experience that Shapes my Work
My professional background spans special education, alternative education, classroom mathematics teaching, mathematics intervention, instructional coaching, online learning, curriculum development, university teaching, and statewide professional learning.
I hold a Master of Arts in Mathematics Education, a Graduate Certificate in Online Teaching, and Idaho teaching endorsements spanning elementary education, special education, middle-level mathematics, and secondary mathematics. I was also named an Idaho State Finalist for the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching in 2025.
I currently serve as Region 6 Representative for the Idaho Council of Teachers of Mathematics and have helped plan Idaho’s statewide ICTM/ISTA STEM Conference, where I have also presented for the past two years.
My professional work has included statewide standards work, mathematics badging, intervention development, curriculum design, professional learning, and national collaboration with organizations including XQ and Student Achievement Partners, including feedback related to mathematics badging and project-based Algebra 1 curriculum.
My earlier curriculum-development work has also included projects with Natural Math, including Calculus for Kids, Transformations with Matrices, and Camp Logic.
Current Projects and Collaborations
My current work spans mathematics intervention, MTSS, special education, professional learning, family mathematics, teacher support, and the development of resources for educators and families.
I contribute to statewide mathematics initiatives in Idaho, including mathematics professional learning pathways, mathematics badging, regional mathematics support, and collaborative work involving universities, special education organizations, mathematics specialists, and family-serving partners.
Through Brontide, I am also developing Mathematical Throughlines — a framework focused on the important mathematical ideas that recur across grades and domains.
Rather than viewing mathematics as hundreds of disconnected skills, this work explores the larger ideas students encounter again and again: quantity, unitizing, equivalence, structure, relationships, representation, proportionality, change, generalization, and others.
The goal is to help educators better understand learning trajectories, identify what may lie underneath persistent struggle, and design instruction and intervention that reconnect students to the mathematics.
Brontide-developed work remains distinct from materials created through state-funded or partner-funded projects. Collaborative projects highlighted on this site will link back to the organizations that officially host and own that work.
Speaking, Workshops, and Professional Learning
I enjoy working with educators, schools, families, and organizations that are asking hard questions about mathematics learning.
I am available for:
- Professional learning and workshops
- Conference sessions and keynotes
- School and district consultation
- Mathematics coaching
- Podcasts and interviews
- Family mathematics workshops
- Collaborative curriculum and resource development
My work is especially focused on struggling mathematics learners and the intersection between conceptual understanding, intervention, special education, mathematical identity, and effective instruction.
Possible topics include mathematics intervention and MTSS, conceptual understanding and procedural fluency, mathematics and special education, IEP goals and progress monitoring, mathematical reasoning and representations, family mathematics, mathematical identity and belonging, and Mathematical Throughlines.
Sessions can be designed for classroom teachers, interventionists, special educators, instructional coaches, administrators, families, or multidisciplinary teams.
For Media, Conferences, and Podcasts
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