Teaching at La Jolla Country Day School

Faculty/Staff Directory

Department

Grade

Last Name

Caroline Becker

Educator, Middle and Upper School Choir

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Bio

“I inspire greatness for a better world by providing my students the opportunity to become articulate musicians, performers and communicators. I create an encouraging classroom atmosphere for my students to take risks and find their voice. Students who can tell a story through their voice will inspire others to do the same and become the leaders who will help impact the world around them.”

Caroline Becker believes that all music should tell a story and make someone feel like dancing. Without this basic concept, the beauty of a musical performance is simply lost to both the performer and their audience. Ms. Becker has taught and modeled this concept from the first day she stepped into the classroom.

Ms. Becker spent the first 24 years of her career teaching music education in the Upper Midwest, where she directed choral programs, orchestras, musical theater, jazz vocal and award-winning competitive show choir programs. She moved to San Diego in 2013 and loves everything about it.

Ms. Becker loves walking on the beach, singing, playing the piano, watching football and spending time with her three daughters, Kaila, Kelsey and Kylie. She is honored and thrilled to be a part of the LJCDS family.
Alexis Grinbold

Educator, US Ceramics and MS Visual Arts

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Bio

“I inspire young artists to engage with the process of making art. It is unreliable, absurd, delightful and invigorating. It is everything and nothing, direct and meandering. It is important that young artists recognize these permanent and fleeting notions because it is here in these moments when the adventure of exploring art begins.”

Alexis Grinbold teaches young artists in both Middle and Upper School with a focus on ceramics. She earned a B.A. from the University of California, San Diego. After graduating, Ms. Grinbold worked in an environmental design studio in San Diego with a small group of designers fabricating custom ceramic tile for residential and commercial developments. This led her to pursue an M.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), where she began teaching in both the ceramics and C.O.R.E. program and also served as the ceramics lab tech assistant.

After graduating from SAIC in 2013, Ms. Grinbold moved back to San Diego and started substitute teaching at LJCDS while maintaining a strong studio practice and acting as an exhibition committee member at the nonprofit art organization Space4Art. She implemented a ceramic program there, installing a kiln and glaze lab for the community. Ms. Grinbold taught full-time at LJCDS, building the ceramics program and teaching AP Art History before moving on to teach at a community college in Palm Desert, CA. There, she started a partnership with the Desert Institute for the Joshua Tree National Park Association, teaching wilderness cooking and baking workshops. Ms. Grinbold returned to LJCDS in 2021 after teaching art and art history at the University of Redlands, Crafton Hills College, College of the Desert and San Diego City College.

When she is not teaching or working in the art studio, Ms. Grinbold is reading or watching anything related to sci-fi, ancient civilizations or animation. She also loves baking and being in nature with her son who inspires her to be an explorer in the world.
Dan Lenzen

Director of Design & Innovation

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Bio

“I inspire greatness for a better world by teaching our students to empathize with the difficulties others face and how to be proactive problem solvers. Human-centered design requires a deep interest in how others experience the world, a sharp analytical eye and the courage to try to improve the world. I teach students the technical and human skills that will allow them to tackle problems of any size.”

Before to coming to LJCDS, Dan Lenzen earned his Master of Science in cognitive science at the University of California, San Diego, where he designed methods to study gesture and sign language with the Microsoft Kinect and taught design to undergraduates. This work built on his interest in how cognition exists in our mind and bodies that began when he earned his Bachelor of Arts in psychology from Colorado College (with a focus on social psychology). He spent three years as a researcher at the University of Chicago, investigating the role of gesture in learning in middle school students. These experiences provided Mr. Lenzen with skills in human psychology, research design, web design and computer programming.

Mr. Lenzen is the director of Design & Innovation and teaches courses in the Upper and Middle Schools.

As a native Chicagoan, Mr. Lenzen has joyfully embraced the San Diego lifestyle—surfing, hiking and actually enjoying the months between October and April.
Michael Peveich

Educator, MS and US Technical Theater

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Bio

“I Inspire greatness for a better world by empowering the well-educated minds of our children to be collaborators in the creative process. Technical theater requires innovative solutions to unknown problems, and the easiest way to innovate and solve problems is to fall back on experience and knowledge. I expect my students to be contributors, innovators and problem solvers because these traits will serve them well beyond the theater and their years at LJCDS.”

Mike Peveich believes that theater and its design present people at their most vulnerable and allow the most authentic self to be laid bare before an audience. In the shop, it’s critical that the designers and technicians feel capable of safely expressing their authentic selves in their designs to best serve the production, the author and the audience.

Mr. Peveich began his technical theater career in college at Belmont Abbey, where he served as the assistant technical director. Following his graduation, Mr. Peveich served as technical director and designer at Northwest School of the Arts in Charlotte before returning home to Ohio to work as the technical director and designer at Western Reserve Academy in Hudson. Since arriving at LJCDS, Mr. Peveich has helped numerous students find their passion for theater and gain acceptance into prestigious theater schools such as The University of Michigan, Carnegie Mellon, USC and more.

In his free time, Mr. Peveich enjoys golfing, cooking, and spending time with his wife, Megan, son Benedict ’34, a husky dog, Brutus, and a cat named Jawa.
Chad Przymus

Educator, US Band and MS Music Elective Grades 78

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Bio

“I inspire greatness for a better world by bringing my passion for music education and performance to each classroom and ensemble. Quality music education provides experiential learning that cross-sections cultures and countries. I strive to blend that broad musical scope in a collaborative and cooperative environment.”

Chad Przymus believes that music is one of the rare disciplines that integrates creativity, communication, critical assessment and commitment within an expressive art form. These attributes can be found in many subject areas; however, music does not make them optional but a fundamental necessity from the first note performed. His comprehensive band program strives for this excellence each day.

Prior to joining La Jolla Country Day School in 2013, Mr. Przymus was a band director and percussion instructor in the Upper Midwest for 25 years. He directed concert, jazz and marching bands of all ages and sizes, and developed award-winning programs in Iowa and Minnesota.

Mr. Przymus enjoys running and almost every kind of drumming, especially taiko drumming. After being awarded an artist grant to study in Japan, he continues to instruct, compose and perform taiko drumming in the San Diego community.
Bob Simon

Educator, MS Design and Innovation; Coach - Golf

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Lillian Sung

Educator, MS and US World Language

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Bio

“I inspire greatness by immersing my students in a foreign language and culture.”

Lillian Sung believes her experience and training have enabled her to evaluate diverse teaching styles from a unique perspective. In her own teaching, she strives to strike a balance between traditional and liberal methods. While Ms. Sung places a high value on maintaining classroom discipline and fostering hard work, she also tries to create an environment where students take joy in learning and feel comfortable participating in class. Ms. Sung appreciates the opportunity to give back to the community by sharing her knowledge and cultural heritage with students at La Jolla Country Day School.

Ms. Sung grew up in Taiwan, where she received her Bachelor of Arts degree in English. She came to the United States to pursue her master’s degree in linguistics, with a focus on teaching Chinese as a second language. She later received a California single-subject teaching credential in Mandarin. Prior to joining LJCDS in 2011, she worked as a Chinese instructor at Palomar College.

Ms. Sung’s favorite quote is by Scott Hayden: “Teachers have three loves: love of learning, love of learners and the love of bringing the first two loves together.”
Robert Wagner

Director of the Arts

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Bio

“Through an arts education, is an education in the human condition. Through painting, building, singing, performing and shaping, students learn to understand themselves and the world around them. I inspire greatness by ensuring students have a safe place to discover their true selves as they experiment with how to create art which shapes, reflects and challenges the world around them.”

Robert Wagner received his Bachelor of Arts in theater and dance from Muhlenberg College. He founded a nonprofit high school performing arts program for inner-city youth in Allentown, Pa. and served as the manager of education and outreach for Muhlenberg College’s Summer Music Theatre.

Mr. Wagner started at LJCDS in 2012 and has taught Middle and Upper School dance and drama and choreographed and directed all of the theatrical productions. In 2022, he became the director of visual and performing arts.

Professionally, Mr. Wagner performed with the Enchantment Theatre Company’s national tour of The Velveteen Rabbit, sang and danced his heart out in countless summer stock productions on the east coast, and choreographed and assistant-directed the La Jolla Playhouse W.O.W. Festival productions of Heaven on Earth and Under Construction. He has served on the board of the international nonprofit Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed, Inc., and was the director of performing arts at the Swain School for four years.

In his free time, Mr. Wagner loves playing with his Goldendoodle, Midas, and traveling with his husband Brent.
Casey Walker

Educator, Design and Innovation

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Bio

“I inspire greatness for a better world by helping students see the connection between learning to tinker with projects in the classroom, and creating opportunities to innovate and make changes in their communities and society.”

Casey Walker joined the Design and Innovation team in 2021. She is passionate about using inquiry-based education to help students develop a critical mindset, personal agency, and a love of both learning and making.

Before joining LJCDS, Ms. Walker taught art, design and engineering for six years at Saint Thomas Aquinas High School in Edison, New Jersey. She helped to develop their STEM curriculum and established their educational makerspace. Ms. Walker grew up in New Jersey where she earned her A.F.A. from County College of Morris and B.A. in studio art from William Paterson University. She spent two years in Philadelphia, where she earned her M.Ed. in student personnel services from Widener University and learned to call long sandwiches “hoagies.”

In 2018, Ms. Walker worked as a freelance contractor, assisting with product design and crowdfunding for a small tech-craft business. This intersection of design, technology and entrepreneurship primed Ms. Walker for her role in the Design and Innovation department at LJCDS.

Ms. Walker is a cat mom who enjoys roller skating, live music, meeting dogs, and all kinds of making; she has even dabbled in blacksmithing. Two of her favorite things to make are jewelry and food.