Shirley Stafford
I am a native Denverite, East High Graduate and Graduate of the University of Colorado with a degree in Elementary Education and Directorship license for Early Childhood Programs. My passion has always been working with young children. My other passion has always been the out of doors.Growing up, my father and I would drive around the mountains every Sunday when weather permitted. I started as a camper and then a counselor at a camp near Echo Lake. My teaching career began when my husband and I started a one room school in a small town north of Boulder on the Peak-to Peak highway. One winter it was so cold that the outhouse door froze shut and we had to cancel school. I remember carrying the youngest children down the hillside to the road below because the wind was so strong it would knock the little ones down. Not for nothing is there a wind gauge on top of Niwot ridge, overlooking the town, which often registers the windiest place in the nation.
I have directed programs or taught young children for the past 34 years. I became interested in Expeditionary Learning in 1997 when I joined a wonderful group of people who wanted to start a charter school based on EL. It seemed like the perfect marriage of Environmentalism and outdoor learning with my passion for teaching young children. It was my pleasure to serve as a founder of Odyssey. I have taught at Odyssey since 1999.
I am married to Darryl and I have two grown children and a lovely daughter-in-law. My son and daughter-in-law both have graduate degrees in environmental education and my daughter is a fitness instructor getting a graduate degree in physical education.