Our Team

Paola Cervantes has over fifteen years of experience working with children. She began as an alumni mentor in her teens for a local community arts education program called Inside Out and proceeded to become a teaching artist to empower at-risk and underserved middle school age youth through visual arts, performing arts and media workshops. After embracing motherhood, she decided to immerse herself in the study of early childhood.

She worked as a teacher at the New School-West Preschool in 2005-2013. At NSW, she taught and worked to make learning visible, interpreted data, and created curriculum off the data collected. She has served as a mentor for interns from Santa Monica City College in their pursuit to work with young children.

Passionate about sharing the value of quality education in early childhood to the greater community, she has presented her work on using sound and music as a language to support learning at North American Reggio Emilia Alliance, consulted with Brightworks in 2011. Prior to working at NSW, she worked in Venice as a teacher at First Years Preschool. Growing up in a family learning to live with special needs and raising a son on the spectrum has motivated Paola to advocate for children of all needs. She has presented with Southern California Association for the Education of Young Children to help parents through the process and was invited to join a panel on KCET’s family resource program “A Place of Our Own” special needs episode. She worked as the Head of Early Childhood at The Exploratory and the director/ teacher of PeaPods SchoolHouse in 2013-2015. At The Exploratory, she developed curriculum for several programs with a focus on Reggio Inspired work, STEAM, and design thinking, like Preschool Tinkering, Mini-Makers Camps, and Toddler course. She studied under the Maker Ed to develop a deeper understanding of the Maker movement and facilitated various professional development workshops to help other educators throughout greater Los Angeles to incorporate this tinkering and making into their curriculum.

Paola Cervantes has over ten years of experience working with children. She began as an alumni mentor in her teens for a local community arts education program called Inside Out and proceeded to become a teaching artist to empower at-risk and underserved middle school age youth through visual arts, performing arts and media workshops. After embracing motherhood, she decided to immerse herself in the study of early childhood.

She worked as a teacher at the New School-West Preschool in 2005-2013. At NSW, she taught and worked to make learning visible, interpreted data, and created curriculum off the data collected. She has served as a mentor for interns from Santa Monica City College in their pursuit to work with young children.

Passionate about sharing the value of quality education in early childhood to the greater community, she has presented her work on using sound and music as a language to support learning at North American Reggio Emilia Alliance, consulted with Brightworks in 2011. Prior to working at NSW, she worked in Venice as a teacher at First Years Preschool. Growing up in a family learning to live with special needs and raising a son on the spectrum has motivated Paola to advocate for children of all needs. She has presented with Southern California Association for the Education of Young Children to help parents through the process and was invited to join a panel on KCET’s family resource program “A Place of Our Own” special needs episode. She worked as the Head of Early Childhood at The Exploratory and the director/ teacher of PeaPods SchoolHouse in 2013-2015. At The Exploratory, she developed curriculum for several programs with a focus on Reggio Inspired work, STEAM, and design thinking, like Preschool Tinkering, Mini-Makers Camps, and Toddler course. She studied under the Maker Ed to develop a deeper understanding of the Maker movement and facilitated various professional development workshops to help other educators throughout greater Los Angeles to incorporate this tinkering and making into their curriculum.