Our Team
Lanny Cheuck - Executive Director & Owner
Lanny Cheuck (she/her) fell in love with Montessori as a parent first, educator second. Lanny worked as a public school educator in NYC for 8 years and then 6 years with a charter organization in San Francisco both as a classroom teacher and later, an education consultant. It was when she became a mother to a young daughter, Lanny read about the Montessori philosophy of child-rearing and witnessed the marvel of her daughter thriving in a local Montessori school.
She channeled her educational experience along with her passion for Montessori and nature-based learning into creating wBees Forest School! Her greatest aim is to create a warm and inviting Montessori school that is inclusive and helps the children see their place in the natural world.
Lanny earned her Administrative Credential from Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, studied with West Side Montessori for her Montessori Administrative Credential, and received her NYS/NYC teaching degree and certifications with Mercy College. She studied literature with Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, FL where she had an intense interest in marine science as well.
Lanny’s interests include traveling, dancing, hiking, gardening, incubating business ideas with women entrepreneurs, and raising two fearless upstanders in this world!
Learn more about how wBees came about, Lanny’s journey in building the program we are today, and her philosophy as a program director through her podcast episode below.
Victoria Luzuriaga Bastidas - Head of School / Developmental Specialist
Victoria (she/her) grew up in the mountains of Ecuador, exploring the rivers and forests she calls home. She holds a BFA in Fine Arts from Parsons School of Art & Design and received her Masters in Psychology from The New School of Social Research. Her focus on Early Childhood Development spans socialization, culture, agency, and play. At the Center for Research with Infants and Toddlers, she conducts research on how the youngest members of our society make sense of their social worlds and develop their conceptual understanding. Victoria also holds her Social Emotional Learning (SEL) Facilitator Certificate, which is an area of education that she prioritizes greatly. Her years of experience traverse teaching and researching internationally across various environments and schools.
Victoria returns for her sixth year at wBees and third year as an administrator, excited to be in the classrooms with our wonderful students and teachers. Her focus is to support every child and family during these formative years by working side-by-side with teachers and caregivers at the developmental, social, emotional, and behavioral levels. Victoria also aims to help cultivate a positive and abundant school community that fosters curiosity, connection, and diverse perspectives.
When she’s not exploring life’s little wonders with students or conducting experiments in the lab, you can find Victoria in her home art studio or exploring her neighborhood, Ridgewood.
Marija Perunovic - Sycamore Teacher
Marija was born in Belgrade, Serbia, and raised in Queens. Since graduating from Reed College with a degree in English in 2013, she has had the unusual opportunity to teach students aged two through adult. Her first real job was assistant teaching at a Montessori school in Portland, Oregon, which ignited her love for Montessori philosophy. She then spent a year teaching English at a public high school in Spain. While pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing and Literary Translation at CUNY Queens College, she served as a Graduate Teaching Fellow, instructing undergraduates in Creative Writing and College Writing. She has led classrooms of preschool, elementary, high school, and college students, a wide range of experiences that involved everything from diapering toddlers to lecturing in postmodern literary theory.
What initially attracted Marija to Montessori education is the principle that we can make the world a better place through peace education. She believes that through our work with young people, we plant seeds of kindness in our world. By foregrounding compassion, care for others, and care for the spaces we all share—be that within the bubble of our small learning community or radiating out to the world at large—we model empathy and acceptance of differences, teaching young people that we can make a positive impact by reaching outside of ourselves and connecting to others. Marija has been a part of the wBees team since 2018 and holds an AMS Montessori credential from West Side Montessori School. She is very excited to be leading the Sycamore classroom!
Angelica Peña- Sycamore Teacher
Angelica was born and raised in Bogota, Colombia. She learned from her early years the importance of education through her mother, the founder of an early childhood school. Angelica had the opportunity to be an active observer of the dedication, love, and impact that educators have in people's lives. This experience strongly led her to pursue teaching as a career path and become an educator herself.
Angelica holds a bachelor’s degree in Education with a focus on Social Studies. She has taught for six years in Colombia. Over those years, her interest in Early Childhood Education grew and became the main focus of her profession. In 2015, Angelica moved to New York City to study English. During those first years, she continued teaching in a more versatile role. As a private tutor, Angelica navigated through different learning experiences that helped her adapt to challenging scenarios and redefine what education means to her. She also began teaching in a Spanish immersion-art-program in a local Brooklyn after-school program. In 2021, Angelica joined the wBees team in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. This experience allowed her to be immersed in the Montessori principles and environment, all while sharing her culture and language with her students.
Angelica is a mother of a 6-year-old boy. She enjoys spending time outdoors and going on adventures with him.
Laura Santiago- Sycamore Teacher
Laura Santiago (she/her) has dedicated over a decade to working with children, both in and out of the classroom. Born and raised in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, she holds a bachelor's degree in Graphic Design and is also a painter. She is passionate about helping children to develop and strengthen their social emotional skills, and creativity.
In 2014, Laura moved to New York to pursue a certificate in painting at the Arts Students League of NY. During this time, she discovered her passion for childcare and education, which led her to work in diverse educational settings. Her experiences include teaching art in after-school programs, tutoring kindergarten students during the pandemic, starting an after-school program that blended Brazilian culture, and teaching in a forest school summer camp, among other roles.
Laura's journey in education took a pivotal turn when she began co-teaching at Collective Kind, a Montessori-inspired school in Brooklyn. Captivated by Montessori's ideologies, which support the freedom and independence of children within a structured environment and deeply respect for children's well-being, Laura solidified her desire to continue working in Montessori settings. She is thrilled to join the wBees team this year in the Sycamore classroom, and looks forward to sharing her experiences and passions with both her students and teammates, as well as learning from them.
Jennie Brown - Dogwood Teacher & Education Director
Jennie has been a teacher for over 20 years and an early childhood educator for the past 15. She finds the joy, honesty and the “in-the-moment-ness” of young children to be a constant inspiration and daily reminder for how she wants to live her life. She began her early childhood teaching career at the Montessori Day School of Brooklyn after graduating with a MA in Early Childhood Education. Jennie holds her NYS / NYC certification in Early Childhood. Since then, she has run several of her own programs in North Brooklyn that specialized in nature and play exploration.
Jennie strongly believes in the power and value of play and nature in children’s lives as well as believing in the Montessori tenet of following the child’s lead. She also feels strongly about respecting the child, developing social-emotional connections and skills, and developing a love of learning through hands-on process-based exploration. She sees these values being uplifted here at wBees and is excited for her third year at the school.
Outside of teaching, Jennie spends time with her two kids who are currently aged 11 and 14. She especially enjoys taking neighborhood dog walks and going to the beach with them.
Becca Weinzimer - Dogwood Teacher
Becca grew up in a small town in Connecticut, exploring the woods behind her childhood home. The daughter of two pediatric health professionals, she knew working with children was in her blood and has been working in early childhood education for 10 years. After a firsthand taste of forest education in Denmark, she hoped to find a nature preschool to begin her post graduate career. Days after moving to Greenpoint, she stumbled across wBees North Brooklyn and has been with us ever since - moving from assistant teacher, to lead teacher, and finally to being a teacher / administrator.
She is excited for her sixth year with wBees (and her third year with the Dogwood class) as she continues her educational journey. Becca is grateful for the ideological home she has found in Montessori and the community she has found at wBees. When she’s not at school, you can often find her at Everyone Yoga or meandering around the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens.
Becca studied psychology and dance at Wesleyan University and received her Montessori Early Childhood Credential from West Side Montessori School in 2023.
Teresa Lopez - Dogwood Teacher
Teresa was born and raised in the small town of Gualleturo-Cañar, Ecuador. She has always been surrounded by children, as she hails from a wonderfully big family of 12 siblings and 35 nephews and nieces. At age 15, she moved to a bigger city to attend high school and college, where she got her degree in Tourism.
Teresa’s early childhood educational experience began with the children in the rural areas of her hometown, where she worked with the local City Hall in a program called First Steps doing home visits.
When she moved to the US, she worked in a preschool setting in Chicago before moving to NYC. It was then that she began to learn about the Montessori approach and environment, both of which align deeply with her personal parenting beliefs. Teresa has been working at wBees since 2019 as a supporting teacher in all the classrooms, where she enjoys engaging with students and teaching in her maternal language, Spanish.
Mary McGrath- Seedlings Teacher
Mary (she/her/hers) was born and raised in the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts. Her formative years were spent outside in the woods exploring the world around her with getting muddy and messy as often as possible. From a young age, Mary held a deep curiosity and passion for dance and movement expression which eventually led her to pursue a freelance career as a professional dancer, weaving together a variety of different jobs to supplement her movement projects. One of those jobs was in childcare, where Mary discovered the challenging and rewarding improvisational practice of observing and attuning to the conscious and unconscious needs and desires of a developing child.
Mary deeply identifies with the principles that Maria Montessori upholds, “that education is not something which the teacher does, but that it is a natural process which develops spontaneously in the human being.” With this sentiment Mary strives to offer herself as the gravity element of the classroom, anchoring the space to then encourage the children to become stewards of their own bodies and environment. Mary finds that in teaching she utilizes many skills that were developed in her movement arts life such as practicing acute awareness of all that is happening in the space around her and then responding in a real time ‘improvisational practice’. She is a true lover of nonverbal communication and takes joy in existing alongside children whose primary ways of communicating are not yet found in words.
Mary received her BFA in Dance from SUNY Purchase and completed her Montessori Infant/Toddler Teaching Credential at West Side Montessori School in Manhattan in 2024.
Sam Howe- Seedlings Teacher
Sam was born and raised in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. She comes from a large family where she is the 6th of 8 children! Sam developed her love of teaching as a child when she would play “school” with her younger siblings, and would take on the role of teacher. She started her career in early childhood as a childcare giver since she was 18 years old. During this work, Sam discovered how rewarding it was to have children guide in their learning and pay attention to their interests, what piqued their curiosity, and what challenged them.
Sam found her love for Montessori learning as a teacher in a North Brooklyn playschool where Montessori philosophy was implemented in daily activities. Each child came in with excitement and Sam witnessed their innate desire to learn. The love they had for their teachers and each other was admirable. It was obvious that this was a respectful, safe and FUN place to be and she felt honored to be part of it. Since then, she has been a classroom teacher of an infant toddler class in a preschool in Manhattan for the past few years.
Sam is excited to be part of the wBees team. She believes that our learning environment will align with her personal philosophy of wanting a kinder, gentler world. This can be achieved by modeling and respecting the children’s voices and choices and guiding them with consciousness.
In her free time, Sam enjoys spending time with her wife and son, venturing to Queens and Brooklyn for good food and play!
Maíra Senise - Extended Day Coordinator
Maíra Senise was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and grew up between her hometown and Bogata, Colombia. After earning a degree in Industrial Design and working in fashion in Rio de Janeiro, Maíra moved to New York City in 2015. During her childhood experiences attending her mother’s film classes, she was captivated by the vibrant community between teachers and students, which sparked her interest in education.
Since 2016, Maíra has been committed to her role as a teaching artist and studio manager in a couple after-school programs in Brooklyn. She delights in creating projects that explore diverse techniques and materials, with a strong emphasis on the process of making.
Maíra joined wBees in 2021 and has greatly valued being part of such an inspiring team. She appreciates the supportive and dynamic community that has been cultivated among the teachers, families, and the neighborhood.
Besides teaching, Maíra is an artist working in painting, sculpture, and video. When she’s not in the classroom or in her studio, you can find her showing her artwork in galleries and exhibitions between the USA, Brazil, Mexico, and the UK.
Kate Bonsted - Extended Day Teacher & Seedlings Teacher
Kate Bonsted, an extended-day teacher at WBees, brings a dynamic blend of education, creativity, and a love for self-expression to her role. Graduating from the University of Michigan laid a strong educational foundation for Kate. However, her true passions extend to weaving textiles, stories, and songs.
Kate is committed to nurturing children's imaginative faculties, encouraging self-expression, and fostering a passion for creative exploration. She patiently guides young minds, empowering them to embrace their uniqueness, experiment with materials, and have fun!
She looks forward to a year of paint splatters, muddy adventures at the park, singing, and lots of laughter. When Kate is not at wBees you can catch her out and about in Ridgewood with her dog, Oso.
Katie Frank - Extended Day Teacher
Katie Frank has worked for over a decade as a freelance childcare provider babysitting kids of all ages all over New York City, while pursuing her passions as a visual artist and writer. She cherishes her time spent around kids, because of their innate fascination with the world around them. While attending NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and since graduating in 2010, she has pursued her love of working with kids by designing and teaching nature, creativity, and mindfulness-based summer camp and weekend programs at Karme Choling Meditation Center in Vermont.
Katie feels a strong affinity with the Montessori and Forest school philosophies, particularly their emphasis on allowing children space for their natural creativity and curiosity to blossom, and she is thrilled to have the opportunity to learn and grow with wBees. She is particularly excited about creating art projects with foraged and repurposed materials, exploring movement and dance, and encouraging imaginative play and storytelling.
Katie has called Ridgewood home since 2011 and is thrilled to be working in her own neighborhood. Since joining the wBees team, she has felt very inspired by the other teachers' abilities to engage the children with kindness and attention, while offering them boundless opportunities to investigate their sensory environment.
Mariah Smith - Extended Day Teacher & Seedlings Teacher
Mariah Smith loves exploring material properties and processes with young learners. As an artist and designer, Mariah enjoys working with her hands and seeing the products of her attention and time. Sharing her skills with her students and observing their excitement and focus as they make art are two of Mariah’s favorite things about working with children.
Mariah was raised in northern California, where she received her B.A. in Architecture from UC Berkeley. She moved to the east coast to pursue her master’s degree in Architecture at Princeton University, and since graduating in 2020, she has been living in Brooklyn. In 2021, after a decade of studying architecture and working as a designer and model maker, Mariah decided to focus on her own art practice and art education. She works primarily with textiles and rag rug-making techniques. Oral histories and community are foundational to rag rugging, and teaching has been a natural extension of her practice.
As the oldest of four, Mariah grew up taking care of small children, and she loves the energy and curiosity that they bring to her life. Before joining the Extended-Day team at wBees, Mariah worked with second graders at a K-12 school in Brooklyn. Part of her role as a co-teacher was to facilitate project-based learning and interdisciplinary connections. At wBees, Mariah enjoys sharing her textile practice with her students and facilitating exploratory, tactile art-making through actions such as tearing, crumpling, squishing, marking, and placing.
Canon Crummey - Extended Day Teacher
Canon (she/they) was raised in Upstate New York and lived in Massachusetts and Vermont before moving to New York City in 2019. After working as a babysitter and tutor throughout her high school years, Canon studied history and secondary education at Boston College. During this time, she was hands-on within the Boston Public School system as she completed student teaching practicums and worked as a substitute high school history teacher.
Since living in New York City, Canon has held various jobs that all seem to tie together with the core themes of education, caregiving, and art. While working as a writing tutor, communications assistant, and bookseller, Canon earned an MA degree in journalism & publishing, with a minor in design studies, from The New School for Social Research in Manhattan.
Canon sees herself as a life-long learner and encourages curiosity, imagination, and creativity in all her students. In addition to their afternoons at Magic Art Club, Canon also teaches a computer learning class at a senior center, works as a direct care companion for seniors, and writes poetry. They love going on walks, seeing their friends perform music, and flipping through zines and art books. Canon practices a growth mindset with herself and all those learning around her.
