Leadership Team Bios
Leslie Hites
Founder and Head of School Emerita
Leslie was born in Colombia, and spent a good part of her childhood and adolescence in Italy with a three year interlude in Washington DC and Chile. From Rome, she moved to Belgium where she studied communication at the Université de Louvain. After moving to the United States, while searching for the best education that would allow her six children to develop their potential, Leslie came upon the work of Dr. Maria Montessori. Since then, she has dedicated her life to studying Montessori, teaching in Montessori environments and as administrator of The Renaissance International School, a Montessori school that is the only genuine trilingual Montessori school in the United States. Leslie is a parent-educator and coach as well as a trainer for the International Network of Children and Families. She regularly teaches an eight-week Redirecting Children’s Behavior course to Bay Area parents. She serves on the Board of Trustees for The NewGate-Field School, a model school of the Montessori Foundation in Sarasota, Florida, and is also on the Board of the International Montessori Council. Leslie lives in Oakland, California with her husband and enjoys traveling to visit her six children and eleven grandchildren who live around the world.
Renée Hites
Head of School
Renée has a background in both music and fundraising development in educational settings. After studying vocal performance at the Conservatoire Royal de Bruxelles, Renée moved to Boston where she got a Bachelor’s and Master’s in Music from The Boston Conservatory. While in Boston, Renée successfully led the Boston Opera Collaborative, a not-for-profit volunteer opera company, for five years; she continues to serve on their board. During that time she also worked in the development departments of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and later the New England Conservatory. In 2014 Renée moved to New York City where she continued her development career at Columbia University. Renée moved to the Bay Area in May of 2017 at which time she started at TRIS overseeing the administrative team. In her free time, Renée loves to go running and enjoys spending time outdoors.
Sara Sangco
Early Childhood Program Coordinator
Sara was born and raised in the Philippines, and traveled often growing up. She completed her Bachelor of Arts degree from the Ateneo de Manila University, majoring in English Literature and Communications. She also holds two Minors in Philosophy and Creative Writing, and worked as a freelance writer and Elementary English teacher before moving to San Diego in 2005 to pursue her AMI Primary training. She was drawn to the method because of her experience in a Montessori High School, and fell in love with TRIS during her visit in 2006. She has worked here ever since. In 2008, she completed her M.Ed in Montessori Education from the Loyola University in Maryland. Since then, she and her husband have welcomed three children, all of whom attend TRIS. In her spare time, Sara enjoys cooking, sneaking vegetables into her children’s food, reading, traveling, and swimming.
Wellington Pontes Filho
Elementary Program Coordinator
Wellington 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, middle school, and high school students in Brazil before coming to the U.S. Since coming to the U.S., he completed his 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 teaches and manages the Elementary Program. 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.
Paul Go
Middle School Program Coordinator
Paul has thus far accumulated 30+ years of teaching English—from rhetoric to literature—at various levels of education. He will never let a comma go unflicked, a metaphor unpacked and a beautiful passage unread. Though he graduated from Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines and Boston University, his actual learning comes from the soot of Dickens’ London, the irrational logic of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the puzzle boxes of Margaret Atwood, the utter humanity of Colson Whitehead, and the knee-buckling prose of Vladimir Nabokov.