Nova High Team
Faculty and Board Members
Natalie Britton
Board President
Her early years were spent learning and growing under a nurturing umbrella of love and precipitation in the Greater Seattle area. She graduated from Seattle Pacific University with a degree in fine arts and education before traveling the world with her high school sweetheart turned husband. After visiting and teaching in many far-off and beautiful places, including South Korea and a native Alaskan village of 300 people, she discovered Waldorf Education. After having two beautiful boys, Natalie developed a fascination with ecovillages. She completed several online courses studying the art of community in addition to visiting several intentional communities across the United States. In 2021, her family traced her husband's origins back to his birthplace in Sandpoint to plant roots and connect with others who are also excited to grow community. She is thrilled and honored to use her background and passions in education and community to co-found Nova High in this unique moment to bring about the changes necessary to meet our times.
Michele Burkey
Humanities; College Counseling; Web Design
Michele is a master teacher that witnesses daily the wonder of Waldorf education embodied in her students and own children. During her undergrad years, she spent her days homeschooling her three children and founding a Waldorf-inspired school called Windsong School that still thrives today. Once she became a trained Waldorf teacher, Michele moved her growing family to the Roaring Fork Valley in Colorado to teach first grade and finally enroll all of her children at a Waldorf School. In pursuit of a Waldorf experience that went through high school for her kids, her heart eventually led her to Maine and a grades teacher position at a K–12 Waldorf school. After having her 5th child, she and her partner decided to follow their shared dream of opening an Organic Juice Bar in Freeport, Maine. She loved and saw first-hand the gift of the Waldorf High School experience her successful older children received and upon moving back home to the Idaho Pan Handle, Michele quickly became actively engaged in the local Waldorf community as a teacher and leader, setting her sights on opening a local Waldorf-inspired High School. Michele is a board member of The Panida Theater. She is an entrepreneur, a visionary, a writer, an artist, and a lover of all things water. She is currently building her own design business and can be found at StardustandAsh.com.
Jessica Prentice
Food and Nutrition; Spanish Teacher; Block Teacher; Administration
Jessica comes to Nova High after serving for five years as the School Director of Berkeley Rose Waldorf School. Before that, she spent thirteen years co-creating and co-leading Three Stone Hearth Community Supported Kitchen in Berkeley, a business specializing in nutrient dense foods made from local produce, pastured meats, and traditional grains. She is the author of Full Moon Feast: Food and the Hunger for Connection, published in 2006 by Chelsea Green Publishing, and a co-creator of The Local Foods Wheel. She is passionate about Waldorf Education, and is a keen student of Anthroposophy. As a mother to a feisty fourteen year old son, she is excited to help bring the important and meaningful work of Steiner-inspired secondary education to Bonner County.
Elizabeth Tarsio
Choir Teacher
A native to the Hudson Valley region of New York, Elisabeth and her family were drawn to the pastoral beauty of Sandpoint eight years ago. Elisabeth graduated from Crane School of Music with a degree in choral and instrumental music education. She began her teaching career as an upper grades public school choral/instrumental teacher on Long Island. After earning a masters degree in Waldorf Education from Sunbridge College, she has been, at various times: a Waldorf class teacher, a music teacher, a theater director, a writing teacher, an academic support teacher, and a private music lesson teacher both independently and in Waldorf schools. She is excited to become a part of Nova High.
Mikkel Meyers
Math Teacher
As a child and young adult, Mikkel always knew she wanted to teach, but had a strong desire to gain life experience first. In her early 20’s, she spent a year as an AmeriCorps member helping run a service learning program at an inner city school in San Diego. She completed a B.S. in Biology at Pacific Lutheran University and worked for nearly 20 years in the worker’s compensation industry, assisting injured workers in their return to work, and eventually moving into the field of ergonomics. This culminated in seven years on the Microsoft ergonomics team and the creation of her own ergonomics firm, Conscious Design Ergonomics, which she operated for six years. In 2019, answering her heart’s call, she chose to pursue certifications in functional nutrition and health coaching. She founded Conscious Design Healing Arts and currently works with one client at a time in the residential healing cottage she and her husband built, Danny’s Place. She teaches middle school math at Selle Valley Carden School and is thrilled to provide math instruction at Nova High. Both of Mikkel’s children were Waldorf-educated in their early years and Mikkel is passionate about helping create a revolutionary way of educating our next generation that is more expansive and child-centered.
Michael Seifert
Block Teacher, Musical Director
Michael’s Waldorf teaching began in 2003 when he graduated from the Bay Area Center for Waldorf Teacher Training and took a first-grade class in San Rafael, California. However, the allure of the mountains and small-town Sandpoint drew his family to the Sandpoint Waldorf School in 2005 to teach a new first grade. Michael’s love for educating children resulted in his shepherding two classes from first through eighth grades. Working with exuberance, Michael has endeavored to master each of the many subjects a Waldorf Teacher is called upon to teach. Along the way, he discovered a special love for drama and musicals in particular. Teaching middle school also reawakened the scientist which had lain dormant since his years studying science at Cornell University. Michael is excited to join Nova High and share these passions.