FACULTY AND STAFF
Nicole Ortiz - Lead Guide, Buttercup Toddler Classroom
Nicole moved to Silver City from Douglas, AZ. She has always loved children and started babysitting at the age of 9. Nicole has two sons and three grandchildren. She enjoys spending time with family, being outdoors, helping her husband with his yard cleaning business and woodcutting. She has been with GMS since 2018.
Erin Fitzgerald - Lead Guide, Agave Primary Classroom
Erin Fitzgerald was raised in a family that loves travel and new experiences, but their home base was always the beautiful landscape of Southern New Mexico. After completing her degree in Cultural Anthropology and Creative Writing in 2013, Erin moved back to Silver City and found the Guadalupe Montessori School community. Erin and her partner have two children, Lydia and Arlo, who are also vibrant and lively members of the GMS community. Although Erin’s passion is early childhood development and understanding cultural backgrounds of families, she also loves to hike, craft, cook, read and play with her children, and get her hands dirty while working with the earth. She completed her AMI Primary certification in 2022.
Dillon Torborg - Lead Guide, Sunflower Primary Classroom
Dillon Torborg has more than a decade of experience working with young children. He started at the age of 17 with the non-profit organization Tucson Summer Music. Over the course of the summer, Dillon facilitated workshops on a variety of instruments. Mr. Torborg then went on to teach at Kids First Preschool (KFP), a nationally accredited school in Tucson, Arizona. He worked at KFP for 6 years, where he was promoted to co-lead of the Pre-K program. In 2021 life brought him to Silver City, where he found Guadalupe Montessori School. Dillon was First Assistant in the Primary Sunflower class for the 2022-2023 school year where he was trained in the Montessori method under Erin Fitzgerald and Joanie Drake Morency. He was the Lead Guide for the 2023 Primary Summer Program, and has since moved on to his current position as Lead Guide of the Sunflower class.
Jocelyn Lyons-Baral - Lead Guide, Ponderosa Elementary Classroom
Jocelyn is an experienced Lower Elementary Montessori guide and has also recently obtained her upper elementary certification. Before moving to Silver City in 2022, Jocelyn was a lower elementary guide in Tucson for seven years and has many other teaching experiences, including teaching ESL both in the US, as well as Russia and China. Jocelyn has four children ranging in age from 10-28. She has worked briefly in Early Intervention social work with 0-3-year-olds, has run a small home preschool and more recently , has studied in a holistic culinary program. Jocelyn loves being in nature with her family, hiking, cooking and being of service to her community.