Guides
We don’t teach; we guide children to learn.
Our Guides are educational experts with experience in progressive, hands-on pedagogical models, Montessori-trained, at home with Waldorf narration and the arts, able to navigate a planter bed, and adept at chairing a Great Works seminar.
They observe, listen, ask questions, encourage, challenge, comfort, celebrate, and laugh with the students. The adults create an environment and a daily rhythm in which children feel safe expressing themselves, practicing new skills, and testing their ideas.
Sheena Panchak — Administrator and Farm Guide
Sheena keeps Alma rooted and running. As school administrator, she oversees daily operations and the rhythms that hold our school together, and she leads our farm program at The Wonder Farm, where children tend the garden, gather for Farm Fridays, and prepare farm-to-table lunches together. Sheena believes children flourish through real, meaningful work.
Sam Crane — Guide
Sam Crane is a lifelong learner who applies her humility and varied life experiences in supporting the learning of students. She has a master’s degree in Elementary Education and 10 years of teaching experience in both alternative and traditional settings. She is dedicated to seeing the whole child, capitalizing on their strengths and helping them learn from their mistakes as they work toward growth goals. When not teaching, Sam enjoys gardening, sewing, and being in nature.
E. Storm Dye — Guide
For more than two decades, Storm Dye has taught children of nearly every age and ability. Half of this time was dedicated to the child-centered magic of Waldorf pedagogy as both a movement teacher and while carrying the Main Lesson. Storm also loves the rugged honesty and beauty of outdoor education, holds a Bachelor's degree in Psychology, and has developed a mastery of and genuine passion for storytelling. Storm delivers lessons with infectious interest and playful exploration; after all, play is both the first step and the final step in understanding an idea. Or, as Storm puts it: to learn is to play, and to play is to learn."
Lisa Kathleen — Montessori Pedagogical Advisor
Lisa Kathleen brings 35 years of experience in Montessori environments with children from infancy through high school to her work training and coaching The Almanac School’s guides. She is an AMI-trained Montessori elementary teacher, program director, parent, parent educator, and head of school. Her experience includes developing the elementary curriculum (ages 6–12) for The Prepared Montessorian Institute, where she curated, mapped, and filmed lessons across every subject area. She has seen the magic in the fundamental Montessori concept of “the prepared environment.” She loves traveling, learning languages, spending time outside, and swimming in the ocean, but more than anything, she loves supporting guides, children, classrooms, and schools so they thrive!
Families
The Almanac School is not a place where we simply send our children to have an experience separate from us. We know each other and each other’s children, and we share the same fundamental convictions about respectful, authentic parenting.
Community ripples outward in three circles: the classroom, our families, and the community at large.
Alma parents are intimately involved in their child’s education and are supported in bringing deep, authentic learning home.
We’re partners in the journey.
We are a community united by our dedication to preserving our children’s natural wonder and curiosity.
Learning happens best inside supportive relationships. Our Guides build authentic, multi-year relationships with each child, so that everyone feels seen, heard, and welcomed. We learn together in mixed-age bands of children and adults, inviting collaboration, cross-generational friendship, and belonging.
Flexible by design.
Every family engages Alma differently, some as their child’s primary education, and some for a few days of enrichment and community each week. We don’t distinguish between them; every child follows the same daily arc and is equally known. We accommodate families who require additional flexibility due to their unique travel needs and work situations.
To be part of our community, families must be enrolled in a charter school or file a Private School Affidavit (PSA).
Founders
Erin Ranallo
Cofounder and Board Secretary
Erin Ranallo serves as Board Secretary and brings a deep personal and professional commitment to the school and its mission. As a parent of two students, she has a firsthand understanding of the impact of an education centered on the whole child. A lifelong student of Montessori philosophy, Erin is passionate about creating learning environments that nurture curiosity, independence, and a love of learning.
Professionally, Erin brings extensive experience in operations, project management, and organizational development. She uses these skills to help bring structure, organization, and thoughtful systems to the nonprofit, supporting its long-term sustainability and growth. As both a parent and board member, Erin is dedicated to helping build a strong foundation for the school and ensuring that its vision can continue to flourish for generations of students.
Jeffrey Tanner, M.Ed.
Cofounder and Board Chair
Jeffrey Tanner serves as Board Chair, bringing to the school a professional life spent building mission-driven institutions and his perspective as a parent. Through The Formation Agency, his advisory practice, he partners with CEOs as they navigate key inflection points in their leadership and organizational journeys. He is also a cofounder and board chair at Hildegard College.
His road to Alma ran through years inside alternative education, as a parent first and a builder second. He has experienced what conventional classrooms ask children to trade away—wonder, curiosity, immersion in creation, and the slow work of building character. Alma is built on his conviction that education must form the whole child — heart, mind, and body in community — by drawing on four traditions and moving with the seasons rather than against them.