Our Principal comes to us from the ASD Administration Building. She has worked there for the past 5 years in the Curriculum Department, specializing in Science and Math. As well, she substituted as an administrator at various schools whenever possible. She is accomplished in adult education; curriculum development; classroom delivery models; national, state, and local conference presentations & planning; and large-scale field trip productions.
Frau Wrabetz has K-12 administrative experience and has taught all grade levels; including multi-disciplinary elementary, multi-age, single subject secondary, and college. She worked as a district trainer in Science, Math, and Cooperative Education.
Frau Wrabetz has traveled to Germany and other German-speaking countries, as well as many areas of the United States and other parts of the world. She is very excited about learning German right along with the students, and is planning on future trips to Europe.
Frau Wrabetz brings a love of Children, Science, Math, Sports, Theater, Music, and other Arts. You will find that she welcomes you to Rilke Schule and listens carefully to your concerns and ideas.
Born and raised in South Carolina, Terri first came toAnchorage in 1996. She met her husband, Jason, within an hour of steppingfoot in Alaska. She has been married for 11 years and has 4wonderful children. Her interest in Rilke Schule began in February of2007 when she first saw a flyer and made the decision to enroll her kids. She is not bilingual nor is she multilingual, but she does at least speak English. She is looking forward to taking the adult German classes. After being a stay-at-home mom for10 years, working at Rilke Schule has been exciting, challenging,satisfying, frustrating, and rewarding. It has never been boring! She is thankful to be part of such a great team and loves to watch thestudents thrive. When she can, she also enjoys spending quality time with her family at their cabin in Petersville.
Michael Helgesen is one of the English kindergarten teachers at Rilke Schule. He has been teaching kindergarten in the Anchorage School District for more than a dozen years. Herr Helgesen learned to speak Spanish and taught in South-Central Los Angeles for four years. He then worked for three years in early childhood at the Providence Hospital Early Childhood Learning Center. Michael has also studied German, Norwegian, French and Russian. He lives in Anchorage with his wife, Yuliya, his two sons, Roos and Alek, and their cat, Rock.
Frau Claudia was born in Schwaebisch Gmuend, in southern Germany. She was raised in that area, and lived there until she was 20 years old. She travels to Germany once a year to visit her family. Almost all of her relatives live there.
She has her Bachelors of Science in Elementary Ed. She taught 5th grade for 3 years on the island of Guam and 6th grade for 10 years at a Title I
school, Taku Elementary, here in Anchorage. This is Frau Claudia's third year teaching Kindergarten German immersion at Rilke Schule.
In 2007, Frau Claudia took a leave-of-absence from the school district in order to travel to South Africa, Namibia, and Botswana with her husband. En route they visited many local schools and Frau Claudia volunteered regularly at an orphanage in South Africa. While still in South Africa, Frau Claudia became aware of Rilke Schule through e-mails from friends and co-workers at Taku Elementary. She applied for a teaching position, and is excited and happy to now be a member of the Rilke Schule team.
Frau Claudia's hobbies include motorcycling, gardening, skiing, and traveling. She lives with her husband and their German Shepherd.
Her favorite German word is Knoedel (dumplings). She likes to eat them, too!
Judith Keihl-Teekell was born and raised in the beautiful country-side of Oberschwaben (Swabia), a region in the very south of Germany. Adventurous and curious about other cultures, Judith traveled early on and found herself in Alaska after graduating from her German high school (Gymnasium). It was then that her life started to change and her travels would turn into a commute between Alaska to be with her now husband, and Germany to visit family.
When she made the decision to move to Alaska, she first studied business administration as an international student receiving a bachelor's degree in logistics. She then worked for the University of Alaska. Rilke Schule had just opened when she looked into a career change to finally pursue her calling as a teacher. Months later, she substituted for Jo Sander’s Kindergarten classes and knew from then on that she wanted to teach primary grades (German immersion, of course). She is currently studying towards her Master of Teaching at Alaska Pacific University.
She enjoys skiing, hiking, and other outdoor activities. But lately, she spends most of her free time training and playing with her Bouvier dog Maja.
Personal background: She was born and raised in Pennsylvania, and has been living in Alaska since 1985. She studied German in high school and was pretty good at it then, but it has been more years than she cares to admit and, to say the least, it will take a bit of a refresher to uncover what she knows is buried in her brain somewhere. She's been married to Gary Nelson since 1986. They don't have any kids or pets, but they have lots of plants. In her spare time (of which she has little), she works on home improvement projects, gardens, crochets, and reads John Grisham books. She also likes to do Sudoku and crossword puzzles.
Professional background: She received her B.S. in Early Childhood Education from Frostburg State University in Maryland in 1979 and has taken lots of Continuing Education credits, enough for a Masters Degree plus if they counted. She has focused on literacy instruction because learning to read and write is key to a quality education. She taught 1 year (subbing) in Pennsylvania right after college, then took a many-year detour into the legal secretarial field. After moving to Anchorage, She subbed for the Anchorage School District for 2 years before being hired at Klatt Elementary. She taught at Klatt for 9 years (8 years of 1st grade and 1 year of Kindergarten). She then taught at William Tyson Elementary for 5 years, where she taught 1st and 2nd grade classrooms and 2nd grade literacy.
Why she chose teaching as a career: She loves working with kids -- they are fun to be with and it is exciting to watch them grow. Young students make so much progress throughout the year. It's amazing to see them mature both academically and socially.
Frau Nelson has two favorite German words, Schadenfreude and Kreutzwortraetzel!
Frau Cooper is originally from Great Falls, MT. She taught grades 7 - 12 German, and also taught for 2 years in a rural school in Victor, MT. Prior to that she earned an M.A. from Ohio State University and taught Russian to college freshmen. She speaks German and Russian, plus a smattering of Polish, Serbo-Croatian and Spanish. She is an avid cross-country skier and hiker. In addition, She is married with two daughters. They hunt and fish as a family; her primary role in hunting has been to run around with the pheasant decoy to train the dog. She is excited to be a part of Rilke Schule and to finally make it to Alaska!
He attended Minot State University in North Dakota because he received a scholarship to pitch for the Minot State Beaver Baseball team. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Elementary Education. After graduation Herr Schlagenhauf received a teaching job with the Bering Strait School District which landed him on St. Lawrence Island, Alaska. He taught 2nd grade in Gambell, AK, which is a Siberian Yupik Eskimo Village 33 miles from Russia. Yes, he could see Russia from his living room! He was the Athletic/Activities Director in Gambell as well as the Head Varsity Basketball Coach. In 2010 he recieved Coach of the Year in the Bering Sea Conference. Herr Schlagenhauf was a baseball player for 20 years and has coached baseball and basketball for the last 7 years.
In July 2010, he made the drive up to Anchorage, Alaska from Boise, Idaho with his girlfriend Amanda and Siberian Husky, Qiluk, to begin teaching at the wonderful Rilke Schule.
Frau Hale is originally from Alaska. She was born in North Pole, but moved around to the East Coast for about 10 years before her family decided to return to Alaska.
She always knew that she wanted to work with kids, but originally thought she wanted to go into Pediatrics. She started college at Loyola University in Chicago and it was there that she decided she would rather go into teaching. Frau Hale transferred to Colorado Christian University in Denver, CO and completed her Bachelors of Science in elementary education. She graduated in May of 2009 after completing her student teaching in a first grade gifted and talented class. After graduating, she moved back home and began to substitute in the Anchorage School District. Frau Hale's connection with Rilke Schule came through a parent who she worked with in the construction/landscaping business. She started subbing at Rilke in Frau Charmin's class every Friday.
In the summers, Frau Hale works for her family's business driving a dump truck for Team Hale Trucking. She absolutely loves it! It always takes people by surprise to see a girl pull up in a dump truck. She is also a hockey player and though she doesn't play as competitively as she once did, she still loves it. When there is time in the summer, she tries to get out and go fishing, camping and hiking.
Herr Birmanns is from Aachen, the most western German city at the border to the Netherlands and to Belgium. He went to university in Tuebingen, near Stuttgart in the South. He has taught two years College German and History, ten years High School and two years Middle School German and Spanish and two years Elementary.
His family can be traced back to the 13th century in the same village close to Aachen in Germany.
Herr Birmanns is married to a Spanish teacher. He has survived careers as baker and as roofer. He was hit by lightening once in the Alps, and survived that too!
His favorite German word is either Schmierfink or Faulpelz, both words he heard a lot in his childhood and again in married life.
Frau Cati graduated from college in 2003 with a B.A. in German and Latin, having spent her junior year in Vienna, Austria. Subsequently she moved to Freiburg, Germany and was an English language assistant in a Gymnasium (grades 5-13) there. After that she moved to Gimmelwald, Switzerland, a tiny farming village in the Alps, and worked on a farm and at a B&B while being totally immersed in Swiss mountain culture. After deciding she needed a full time job (though raking hay and making cheese was quite enjoyable), she moved back home to Texas and taught 3rd-5th grade Latin at a private school. She wanted to pursue German, though, so she applied to graduate school and received her M.A. in German with teaching licensure in 2008 from Tufts University in Boston. She and is thrilled to be able to help kids along on the road of discovery that is a natural result of learning another language. She loves to ski, play piano, hike, take pictures, and learn about the Middle Ages.
Mr. Whiteley just graduated from Washington State University in May with a Bachelor of Arts in Elementary Education. He knew that he either wanted to teach near his hometown, in the Seattle area, or move to Anchorage. After receiving a phone call at a Mariner’s game asking him how quickly he could relocate to Alaska, he started to realize he was about to begin a new journey in his life. About a week later he found himself in a new city he hadn’t been to and teaching at an interesting and exciting place.
He looks forward to furnishing student learning in the classroom and showing students how they can apply themselves outside of the classroom. He knows he made the correct decision to move to Anchorage, and he looks forward to leaving a lasting impact on our future leaders.
Charmin has a Master of Arts in
teaching and a Bachelor’s degree in Liberal Studies, focused on Russian
studies. She speaks Russian and German and enjoys learning new languages. Charmin taught English as a second language
at Bartlett High School for her internship. She then switched gears and taught ESL at the elementary level at
Tanaina Elementary. During her time at
Tanaina, she also taught an hour and a half extension of kindergarten in
Russian. Charmin started at Rilke the
first year it opened as a substitute teacher, felt like she had found her home,
and stayed. Charmin’s thirst for
knowledge and experiences is something that she looks forward to sharing with
her students to promote lifelong learning.
Charmin is an avid climber of ice,
rock and mountains. She relishes outdoor
experiences like sea kayaking, biking, hiking, skiing, snowboarding, and ice
skating, and is trying to add whitewater kayaking to her skill set. Charmin also spends time exercising her
creativity making cards, beading, sewing, scrapbooking, lettering, drawing,
coloring, color design, painting, and doing papercrafts, wire crafts and
calligraphy. She spent four months traveling through Estonia and Russia and spent a week in Austria. This jump started her hunger to experience
new cultures, gain new perspectives and meet interesting new people. She is very excited to add to her travel
experiences.
Frau Stephanie has taught for the Anchorage School District for the past 11 years. She began her teaching career at Nunaka Valley Elementary, where she taught for 5 years, teaching 4th through 6th grades in the Slingerland program. She then moved to Baxter where she could be more involved in the technology program. After teaching at Baxter for several years, she moved to Highland Tech High when they opened in the fall of 2003. At Highland she taught middle school English, Science, Social Studies, Math and Technology. She also taught 9th grade World History for a semester. Ms. Campbell has been a Lego League Robotics coach for the past 3 years as well as Highland Tech's F.I.R.S.T. Robotics coach, coaching the first Alaskan team to ever be team captains at a regional playoff.
Ms. Campbell's classroom philosophy is "Work hard so we can play hard." She encourages students to follow their passions, to think outside the box, and to expand the limits of their comfort zone each day. Chicken mummies, bog water studies, quarterly speeches, earthquake preparedness videos, musicals, black plague simulations, and swing dancing are some of the activities that have come out of her classroom in the past. Ms. Campbell is a theater and opera fan and her class usually attends several plays and operas each year as well as making museum visits whenever something exciting is being shown. Ms. Campbell believes that consistent classroom structure gives students the foundation they need to focus on learning.
In her free time she enjoys reading, sewing, beading, dancing, playing video games and spending time with her son, Kyle.
Herr Downie was born and raised in Alaska. He has worked for the Anchorage School District teaching music for the last 14 years. He spent a year studying music at the Mozarteum in Salzburg Austria and enjoys teaching with some of his materials from the institute.
He loves teaching and has a philosophy that all
children can learn and be successful in music. He teaches kids to learn to
read, write and play music through singing, performing, listening,
dancing, and creating.
He loves to ski, climb, and travel, and his most exciting
adventure in the last few years has been a successful summit of
Denali in 2005. He and his wife now enjoy skiing with their young daughter.
He is excited to be the music teacher at Rilke Schule and enjoys being part of the Rilke Schule community.
Yuliya Helgesen-Thompson was born in Ekaterinburg, Russia. She was raised in both Russia and Leipzig, Germany. Yuliya has a master’s degree in art education and a bachelor’s degree in art and interior design from the Academy of Arts and Crafts in Ekaterinburg, Russia. For the past three years, Yuliya has been the artist-in-residence at Turnagain Elementary School and 2008-2009 at Rilke Schule. She has also done all of the original art for the Russian Immersion Program in the Anchorage School District for the past seven years. Yuliya also teaches Russian at the Aurora Waldorf School here in Anchorage. Yuliya's artwork is represented at the Fiddlehead Gallery, which is located in downtown Anchorage at 416 G St. Yuliya participates in numerous group and juried shows around Anchorage and the state of Alaska. Her most recent shows were held at Doriola's and at the Mixx Grill here in Anchorage. Yuliya's artwork is also often featured at MTS, International, Middle Way Cafe, and Virtu galleries here in town.
In 2009, Yuliya received Third Place in the Alaska Water Color Society's 35th Annual Juried Exhibition. Yuliya has also done two standout art performance pieces at the MTS Gallery here in Anchorage. She is also a founding member, costume designer and performer in the Russian Dance Troupe Sudarushka. Additionally, she gives private art lessons and lives in Anchorage with her two sons and husband.
Yuliya's art can be viewed on her web-site at: www.yuliyaht.com If you would like to join her mail list for upcoming shows please email Yuliya at: yuliyaht@gmail.com
As Rilke's School Health Nurse, she will be in the school a total of one day a week, usually broken into 2 half-days over the midday recesses and lunch breaks in order to tend scraped knees and elbows, bumped heads, etc.
Nurse Liz has lived in Alaska for over 50 years
She was the School Health Nurse for 5 years at West High School in Anchorage many years ago and is now retired, except for working at Rilke Schule. When Liz was a university student, she spent one year in Germany--in Stuttgart and Bavaria--after which she earned a BA in German at Washington University in St Louis, MO. For 40 years, except for one year of teaching German, Liz almost never used her German. And then, suddenly, 5 years ago, her husband was offered a job in Salzburg, Austria. Of course they went and she began the process of dredging up all the German words she hadn't used for so long from the back of her brain. Liz attended a number of classes for Foreign students while there and was pleased to find that she had not forgotten ALL of them.
Her grandson is a student at Rilke.
Nurse Liz's all-time favorite German phrase is "Keine Ahnung!"
Frau Jakos was born in Wurzburg, Germany to a German mother and Hungarian born father. Her father joined the US military and they traveled back and forth, as a family of 5 children, between the US and Germany throughout her childhood. She grew up bilingual, speaking a young person's German, and claiming US citizenship when she turned 18 years old. Most of her adult life has been in the USA.
Frau Jakos was a 2nd/3rd grade teacher in Colorado before she attended graduate school in Seattle. She fell in love with Alaska and moved to Dillingham in 1977 after attending the University of Washington, School of Education, Educational Psychology. She has worked as a School Psychologist, serving most of the Bush
communities, as both an independent contractor as well as with various educational agencies. She started her tenure with ASD some 16 years ago. Besides her work in this primary profession, she has also trained teachers in working with emotionally disturbed children in rural communities, lectured and co-authored a behavior management teacher's guide and worked as an educational administrator for SESA. Currently, she is certified as a K-12 teacher, Psychologist and K-8 Principal.
This is Frau Jakos's third year assisting the students, parents and staff at Rilke Schule. She spends time with two other ASD schools, one elementary and one middle school. Her Rilke service days are Thursdays.
Most of her friends and relatives are German. Her lifestyle, major life events and favorite places are all in Germany and/or Europe. One of the many reasons Frau ?? settled in Alaska was it's close summer air travel proximity to Germany. German food is one of her many strong links too, "Meiner Heimat".
Frau Claudia and Frau Jakos have been best friends since 1985! She is interested in the fine arts as well as the performing arts. Cultural experiences and
European history interests her. Animals and dogs hold a special place in her heart. She loves working with children and enjoys reading novels whenever she can. She would like to learn French, start oil painting again and needs to meet folks who can help her refine her limited sailing skills and/or help her get her 1966 MGB on the road again. Small airplane travel and flying over this gorgeous State are also very special interests.
Frau West grew up in south west Germany and was fortunate enough to travel and learn many different languages. Her goal was to work with children in many different places. She got close!
She became a ”KINDERGÄRTNERIN” in Germany in a Fröbel seminar, then studied pediatric nursing and spent months in England and a year in Minneapolis, USA. After several years as a nurse and nanny, She really wanted to return to the USA. Through friends she learned about the Montessori Method.
She landed in Fairbanks in 1966 and taught for approximately six years at the Fairbanks Montessori school, nine years at the Anchorage Montessori school, and 15 1/2 years at the Providence Center for Child Development. She happily retired and did a little volunteer work. But she got bored and then heard about the NEW German School. So here she is! She loves working with the staff and children and experiencing the new challenges of a new charter school.
She has grown twin children and is the proud Grandmother of 3 grandchildren.
Amanda is the smiling face you often see in the morning and afternoon directing traffic, and at midday on the playground helping the children. In between those times she is tirelessly helping out wherever she is needed. If you ever need to know where anything in the building is, ask Amanda!
Frau Jo Sanders - Curriculum Director
You can email Frau Sanders at Frausanders@alaska.com or you can telephone her at 345-0203.
Jo Sanders is a 35 year veteran of the Anchorage School District (West HS, Bartlett HS, Village Charter, and Aquarian Charter). She is one of the founders of Rilke Schule. She is currently the Chair of the Academic Policy Committee and is in charge of the German Curriculum at Rilke Schule. Frau Sanders has been the president of the American Association of Teachers of German, the Northwest Council on Foreign Languages and the Alaskan Foreign Language Association. She was named the outstanding German teacher in the United States by the American Association of Teachers of German, was Anchorage Teacher of the Year, a Walt Disney Salute to American Education Teacher, a Fulbright Exchange Teacher, recipient of the national Florence Steiner Award for Leadership in Foreign Language and received the Bundesverdienstkreuz (Federal Cross of Honor) from the Federal Republic of Germany.
Frau Sanders is a consultant and trains teachers all over the United States for the Goethe Institute and the AATG. As a local teacher, she co-founded the state German Camp, which has run since 1973 and the state Foreign Language Declamation Contest. Many of the local German teachers did their student teaching under Frau Sanders. Her personal interest in nature is reflected in her classroom teaching and her methods emphasize hands-on learning, lots of songs, games and physical activities.
Our Principal comes to us from the ASD Administration Building. She has worked there for the past 5 years in the Curriculum Department, specializing in Science and Math. As well, she substituted as an administrator at various schools whenever possible. She is accomplished in adult education; curriculum development; classroom delivery models; national, state, and local conference presentations & planning; and large-scale field trip productions. 
Born and raised in South Carolina, Terri first came toAnchorage in 1996. She met her husband, Jason, within an hour of steppingfoot in Alaska. She has been married for 11 years and has 4wonderful children. Her interest in Rilke Schule began in February of2007 when she first saw a flyer and made the decision to enroll her kids. She is not bilingual nor is she multilingual, but she does at least speak English. She is looking forward to taking the adult German classes. After being a stay-at-home mom for10 years, working at Rilke Schule has been exciting, challenging,satisfying, frustrating, and rewarding. It has never been boring! She is thankful to be part of such a great team and loves to watch thestudents thrive. When she can, she also enjoys spending quality time with her family at their cabin in Petersville.
Michael Helgesen is one of the English kindergarten teachers at Rilke Schule. He has been teaching kindergarten in the Anchorage School District for more than a dozen years. Herr Helgesen learned to speak Spanish and taught in South-Central Los Angeles for four years. He then worked for three years in early childhood at the Providence Hospital Early Childhood Learning Center. Michael has also studied German, Norwegian, French and Russian. He lives in Anchorage with his wife, Yuliya, his two sons, Roos and Alek, and their cat, Rock. 
Frau Claudia was born in Schwaebisch Gmuend, in southern Germany. She was raised in that area, and lived there until she was 20 years old. She travels to Germany once a year to visit her family. Almost all of her relatives live there.
We will tell you more about Frau Martin soon!
Judith Keihl-Teekell was born and raised in the beautiful country-side of Oberschwaben (Swabia), a region in the very south of Germany. Adventurous and curious about other cultures, Judith traveled early on and found herself in Alaska after graduating from her German high school (Gymnasium). It was then that her life started to change and her travels would turn into a commute between Alaska to be with her now husband, and Germany to visit family.
Personal background: 
Frau Cooper is originally from Great Falls, MT. She taught grades 7 - 12 German, and also taught for 2 years in a rural school in Victor, MT. Prior to that she earned an M.A. from Ohio State University and taught Russian to college freshmen. She speaks German and Russian, plus a smattering of Polish, Serbo-Croatian and Spanish. She is an avid cross-country skier and hiker. In addition, She is married with two daughters. They hunt and fish as a family; her primary role in hunting has been to run around with the pheasant decoy to train the dog. She is excited to be a part of Rilke Schule and to finally make it to Alaska!
Herr Schlagenhauf comes to us from Boise Idaho.
Herr Birmanns is from Aachen, the most western German city at the border to the Netherlands and to Belgium. He went to university in Tuebingen, near Stuttgart in the South. He has taught two years College German and History, ten years High School and two years Middle School German and Spanish
Frau Schwicht will be telling you more about herself, soon.
Frau Cati graduated from college in 2003 with a B.A. in German and Latin, having spent her junior year in Vienna, Austria. Subsequently she moved to Freiburg, Germany and was an English language assistant in a Gymnasium (grades 5-13) there. After that she moved to Gimmelwald, Switzerland, a tiny farming village in the Alps, and worked on a farm and at a B&B while being totally immersed in Swiss mountain culture. After deciding she needed a full time job (though raking hay and making cheese was quite enjoyable), she moved back home to Texas and taught 3rd-5th grade Latin at a private school. She wanted to pursue German, though, so she applied to graduate school and received her M.A. in German with teaching licensure in 2008 from Tufts University in Boston. She and is thrilled to be able to help kids along on the road of discovery that is a natural result of learning another language. She loves to ski, play piano, hike, take pictures, and learn about the Middle Ages.
Mr. Whiteley just graduated from Washington State University in May with a Bachelor of Arts in Elementary Education. He knew that he either wanted to teach near his hometown, in the Seattle area, or move to Anchorage. After receiving a phone call at a Mariner’s game asking him how quickly he could relocate to Alaska, he started to realize he was about to begin a new journey in his life. About a week later he found himself in a new city he hadn’t been to and teaching at an interesting and exciting place.
Charmin has a Master of Arts in
teaching and a Bachelor’s degree in Liberal Studies, focused on Russian
studies. She speaks Russian and German and enjoys learning new languages. Charmin taught English as a second language
at Bartlett High School for her internship. She then switched gears and taught ESL at the elementary level at
Tanaina Elementary. During her time at
Tanaina, she also taught an hour and a half extension of kindergarten in
Russian. Charmin started at Rilke the
first year it opened as a substitute teacher, felt like she had found her home,
and stayed. Charmin’s thirst for
knowledge and experiences is something that she looks forward to sharing with
her students to promote lifelong learning.
We will tell you more about Frau Lambert soon!
Frau Stephanie has taught for the Anchorage School District for the past 11 years. She began her teaching career at Nunaka Valley Elementary, where she taught for 5 years, teaching 4th through 6th grades in the Slingerland program. She then moved to Baxter where she could be more involved in the technology program. After teaching at Baxter for several years, she moved to Highland Tech High when they opened in the fall of 2003. At Highland she taught middle school English, Science, Social Studies, Math and Technology. She also taught 9th grade World History for a semester. Ms. Campbell has been a Lego League Robotics coach for the past 3 years as well as Highland Tech's F.I.R.S.T. Robotics coach, coaching the first Alaskan team to ever be team captains at a regional playoff. 
We'll tell you more about Herr Strauch soon!
Herr Downie was born and raised in Alaska. He has worked for the Anchorage School District teaching music for the last 14 years. He spent a year studying music at the Mozarteum in Salzburg Austria and enjoys teaching with some of his materials from the institute. 
Yuliya Helgesen-Thompson was born in Ekaterinburg, Russia. She was raised in both Russia and Leipzig, Germany. Yuliya has a master’s degree in art education and a bachelor’s degree in art and interior design from the Academy of Arts and Crafts in Ekaterinburg, Russia. For the past three years, Yuliya has been the artist-in-residence at Turnagain Elementary School and 2008-2009 at Rilke Schule. She has also done all of the original art for the Russian Immersion Program in the Anchorage School District for the past seven years. Yuliya also teaches Russian at the Aurora Waldorf School here in Anchorage. Yuliya's artwork is represented at the Fiddlehead Gallery, which is located in downtown Anchorage at 416 G St. Yuliya participates in numerous group and juried shows around Anchorage and the state of Alaska. Her most recent shows were held at Doriola's and at the Mixx Grill here in Anchorage. Yuliya's artwork is also often featured at MTS, International, Middle Way Cafe, and Virtu galleries here in town. 
Retirement did not last long because she could not stay away from Rilke Schule. Yes, she is back and we are thrilled!
Frau Jakos was born in Wurzburg, Germany to a German mother and Hungarian born father. Her father joined the US military and they traveled back and forth, as a family of 5 children, between the US and Germany throughout her childhood. She grew up bilingual, speaking a young person's German, and claiming US citizenship when she turned 18 years old. Most of her adult life has been in the USA.
Frau Rardin will tell you more about herself soon.
Frau West grew up in south west Germany and was fortunate enough to travel and learn many different languages. Her goal was to work with children in many different places. She got close! 
Amanda is the smiling face you often see in the morning and afternoon directing traffic, and at midday on the playground helping the children. In between those times she is tirelessly helping out wherever she is needed. If you ever need to know where anything in the building is, ask Amanda!
Jo Sanders is a 35 year veteran of the Anchorage School District (West HS, Bartlett HS, Village Charter, and Aquarian Charter). She is one of the founders of Rilke Schule. She is currently the Chair of the Academic Policy Committee and is in charge of the German Curriculum at Rilke Schule. Frau Sanders has been the president of the American Association of Teachers of German, the Northwest Council on Foreign Languages and the Alaskan Foreign Language Association. She was named the outstanding German teacher in the United States by the American Association of Teachers of German, was Anchorage Teacher of the Year, a Walt Disney Salute to American Education Teacher, a Fulbright Exchange Teacher, recipient of the national Florence Steiner Award for Leadership in Foreign Language and received the Bundesverdienstkreuz (Federal Cross of Honor) from the Federal Republic of Germany.