Ruth Castañeda is from Mexico City. She is a credentialed Elementary Teacher with a B. A. in Special Education in hearing and speech. She has a Master’s degree in Educational Research. She worked as Speech Therapist and as a Special Education teacher for deaf children and young adults. She is an interpreter in Mexican Sign Language. She came to us with 23 years of experience as a Special Education and Elementary teacher in Mexico. She is a certified Elementary Montessori guide ages 6 to 12. Ruth started working at TRIS in January of 2004.

Welling­ton Franklin Pontes Filho has over 17 years of experience in education. He began his educational career as a middle and high school math teacher. Originally from Fortaleza, Brazil, Wellington holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, a degree in Education with an emphasis in Math from the Universidade Estadual do Ceara, and a degree in Special Education, specializing in the hearing-impaired, from the Universidade Estadual Vale do Acarau in Brazil. Wellington taught elementary through high school students before coming to the U.S. Ever since, he completed the AMI Primary Montessori training in Mountain View, California as well as an AMI Elementary Montessori training program in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Wellington has been working at TRIS since 2005, where he has taught in Primary and Elementary; he is currently teaching in Upper Elementary. During this time, he has trained many teachers in his classroom on classroom management, and how to use and integrate the Montessori philosophy in their lessons. Wellington has four children at TRIS. He believes that every child should be valued and treated with respect. An education should empower a child and help her or him make a positive contribution to our world. Wellington is thrilled to be working with an international community, dedicated teaching staff, and sharing his passion for math and Montessori education with his students.

Claire Febvre is from a small town in Eastern France and has been living in the United States for five years. She holds a Juris Doctor and a Bachelor’s of Linguistics from the Sorbonne, with a focus in Teaching French as a Foreign Language. Claire has over ten years of experience teaching French to adults and children and is very excited to be joining the TRIS team. She is also a certified yoga instructor and is interested in multimedia arts, environmental protection, and philosophy. He joined TRIS in 2017.

Diego Salinas Juárez is originally from México, Michoacán. Diego holds a B.A. in Political Economy from the University of California, Berkeley. He also holds an AMI Montessori Elementary Guide Certification along with an A.A. in Math and Science. Before coming to TRIS, Diego worked with elementary and middle school students in Berkeley and Los Angeles CA. Diego has been working at TRIS since 2012. When he is not teaching, Diego enjoys to play soccer, watch soccer, watch movies, and take landscape photographs.

Sophia Gigliotti grew up on the Chesapeake Bay in Deale, Maryland. Prior to moving to the Bay Area, Sophia obtained her B.A in Geoscience at Franklin and Marshall College, in Pennsylvania. She has worked as geologic research assistant in regions of the Mid-Atlantic and in the Atacama Desert in Chile. Sophia was a Montessori student for 9 years at an AMI school in Maryland. She has been with TRIS since 2016.

Hugo Brousse was born in Marseille, a beautiful city in southern France. He holds a teaching degree in French as a second language from the “Université de La Réunion”. He currently is enrolled in a distance learning program to earn his master's degree in language didactic from the same university. Hugo’s passion is fencing. He was in the French national team for many years and still trains recreationally. He also loves sailing in the bay with his friends. He joined TRIS in 2016.