Paige Missamore

I've been in education for 30 years, starting with 25 years teaching in public and private schools. I spent 20 years at Marin Primary as a head kindergarten teacher, where I co-founded the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee and led it for 10 years. That's been my passion and why I went into teaching. I started working with amazing people in the East Bay committed to that work, doing workshops for people of color, going to the People of Color Conference, and realizing this was something I could be doing at my school in a leadership role. I was doing mindfulness and yoga in my classroom before mindful schools even came to our school. I had a lot of families in demand wanting me to do after-school yoga classes because I was already doing it in my classroom. When COVID hit, I couldn't do online teaching, it was impossible and stressful, and I have my own kids, so I pivoted like many people and found out that going on my own was actually a better road. I grew up in this area in the Bay Area, in Marin County, and I had worked in several schools, so I had so many families calling me during COVID asking if I could homeschool their kids. The demand I was getting from families paved the way for me to go on my own. I started doing art therapy camps using mindfulness and yoga, because I'm also an artist. For the past 5 years, I've been working one-on-one with families that have children in elementary and middle school that are having academic challenges, applying my expertise around teaching kids how to regulate themselves using mindfulness and yoga. I also run women's circles and do art therapy for women. Instead of having 24 kids in a classroom, I really like being able to focus on one kid and giving all my energy and support to that kid and to that family. That's kind of my jam right now, really focusing on kids that have learning challenges and neurodiversity issues. I've found a lot more peace in focusing on doing my own practice instead of working at a school.