Mrs. Padilla is thrilled to be starting a new path in teaching 5th grade for the 2024-2025 School Year. She grew up in a small ski town in southern VT, always preferring the outdoors to being inside. After attending college in Boston, she spent a few years in northwest Montana. In the summer of 2010, she moved to Wrangell to work for the USFS at Anan Bear and Wildlife Observatory. She fell deeply in love with this incomparable place and its tight-knit community! Since then, she spent 2011-2014 as the program coordinator for a wilderness-based STEM camp, and 2015-2020 in a senior management role at SEARHC Alaska Crossings. Her plan to pursue a new career in education began with enrollment in the UAF Master’s in Elementary Education (K-8) program and student teaching 6^th graders at Stikine Middle School for the 2020-2021 school year. 

Since then, Mrs. Padilla has been fortunate to gain experience in a variety of roles in Wrangell Public Schools, serving as a long-term substitute for Kindergarten (Fall 2022), the Migrant Education Program Teacher, and - most recently - the Migrant Education and Title 1 Programs Coordinator/Teacher (2023-2024). 

When not in the classroom, Mrs. Padilla, her husband, and two sons recreate outdoors and enjoy the subsistence lifestyle that is possible here.