Local Roots

While growing up in New Market, Amelia attended Riverton and Buckhorn schools before earning her degree from the University of Alabama, where she studied pre-med and dance. Her parents, grandparents, sisters, niece, and partner all live locally, anchoring her commitment to supporting North Alabama families through meaningful, community-rooted education.

At Mt. Carmel Elementary, Amelia specializes in emotional regulation strategies and literacy intervention. She also teaches in the Children’s Division at Huntsville Ballet School, designing inclusive, developmentally aligned classes that promote creativity and confidence. Her past experiences as a tutor, nanny, and camp counselor have shaped her belief that learning spaces should be empathetic, encouraging, and fun—and that every child deserves a calm, empowering space to grow.

A Unique Approach

Amelia’s teaching style blends intention with instinct—spotting a child’s unspoken struggles, offering just enough challenge, knowing when to pause or push. What feels natural to her comes from years of building trust with learners who need more than one-size-fits-all support. Amelia is particularly known for working with students who’ve grown discouraged or resistant to learning. She responds with patience, humor, and high expectations, building trust that turns shutdown into self-advocacy, and turning avoidance into engagement.

From her early days as a nanny to her classroom experience today, she’s naturally gravitated toward Montessori-inspired practices—offering choice, honoring individual rhythms, and creating space for independence to flourish. Her approach also draws from Dr. Ross Greene’s Collaborative & Proactive Solutions model, viewing behavior as communication of unmet needs or lagging skills, emphasizing problem-solving over punishment.

After supporting children in  private homes, public schools, and hybrid learning, Amelia saw how traditional classrooms often move at one fixed pace—holding back some students and rushing others. Brain Space was created as the antidote: a place where kids learn at their own rhythm, build mastery through peer collaboration, and experience the kind of personalized support that fosters real self-esteem. It’s a learning environment built to spark deep understanding, not just surface-level achievement.

Amelia works extensively with English Language Learners (ELLs), supporting children and adults in phonics, cultural fluency, and pragmatic speech skills. Her literacy instruction is grounded in structured methods informed by the Science of Reading and her Orton-Gillingham training—an approach designed to support students with dyslexia and other reading challenges through explicit phonemic awareness, decoding strategies, and multisensory engagement.