Sherri Helvie is a dedicated educator with 20 years of experience at the collegiate level and at schools serving students in grades K-12. Currently the Assistant Head of Gateway School, in Santa Cruz, California (the city’s premier progressive K-8 school), Sherri oversees the academic program and has established a long-term vision for the institution. Her signature initiatives include an all-school reading program, a partnership with the Developmental Psychology Department at UC Santa Cruz, and a social-emotional learning curriculum. She began at Gateway in 2009, serving has Middle School Coordinator and was promoted to her current post in 2014. Sherri has written articles and led talks centered on brain development, emotional intelligence, and educational leadership in general. Sherri understands how all the pieces of a school work together as a community, as a place, and as a business. Sherri recently joined the Board of the York School in Monterey, California – experience that has enhanced her knowledge of governance, fundraising, and strategic planning.

After working as a Graduate Assistant in the English Department of the University of California, Santa Cruz (while she was working on her Ph.D.), Sherri took her first job in an independent school. From 2004-2009, she taught Ancient and Medieval Literature at Pacific Collegiate School in Santa Cruz, a charter school serving 525 students in grades 7-12. At Pacific Collegiate, she also served as English Department Chair and Director of the After-School Tutoring Program.  Simultaneously, she taught courses on Charles Dickens and twentieth century British fiction at UC Santa Cruz. Throughout her time as both an educator and student, Sherri has demonstrated a deep commitment to equity and inclusion. She has participated in trainings and workshops lead by the National Association of Independent Schools, the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, and Columbia University’s Teacher’s College.

Sherri holds a B.A. in English with a minor in Women’s Studies from the University of Nevada, Reno. She went on to earn a M.A. in English with emphases in Women’s Literature and Critical Theory and a minor in Classical Greek before moving to UC Santa Cruz, where she earned her doctorate in Literature with a degree notation in Women’s Studies. Sherri currently lives in Santa Cruz with her husband and two children.

Sherri believes that the purpose of education is not only to empower students but also to instill in them a sense of collective responsibility, kindness, and empathy. She wrote in her statement of educational philosophy, “It does the world little good if our high-achieving, technology-proficient, well-rounded students never fully comprehend their role in making the world a better place. I am an educator because I believe that we must inspire our students to take on this lofty and indispensable goal: and it begins by asking even our very youngest students, from the moment they walk into our school, what it means to be a good person in the world.”