Kirsten Pomerantz is an instructor of elementary education at the University of Idaho Coeur d’Alene center. She teaches courses in English, social studies, and cultural diversity, advises, and oversees practicum placements in the Idaho panhandle. She has spent her adult life working and volunteering in educational, civic, and non-profit contexts to promote and support civility, equity, and ecology in tangible, community-level ways.

She taught high school English at Lake City High School for seven years and led schoolwide PBIS efforts for four years. She was honored to be the 2018 Teacher of the Year for the Coeur d’Alene School District and in 2019 received designation as an Idaho Master Educator. While teaching at Lake City High School, Pomerantz helped students start an Anime Club and advised it for five years. She also co-created and taught for three years a (tier 2) class for the most at-risk incoming high school students to try to support more positive outcomes for those students. Her ongoing work in education was and continues to be reimagining public education to be a context that is welcoming and effective for ALL learners.

Prior to teaching English, she finalized her Master of Education in Special Education while teaching life skills and community experiences classes at Lake City High School. She began her Master’s studies during her four years teaching in a psychiatric residential treatment setting and has a particular focus on adolescents with autism spectrum diagnoses. Her other certified teaching experiences were teaching a 5th-7th grade contained classroom in a private school in Coeur d’Alene, 4th grade typing instruction Title I small-group language-development assistance, and a semester teaching high school physical science in Lindhurst, California.

Pomerantz, as clinical faculty, strives to: maintain awareness of current classroom contexts; build community capacity; support humanities and human rights projects at the university, community, and state-wide levels; and deepen her understanding of research-based best practices in instructional design and implementation of her core subject areas.

• Best practices in instruction and instructional design
• Literature, Literacy, Writing, and Social Studies
• Community Outreach
• Advising and mentoring of aspiring educators

• Learner Agency
• Place-Centered Learning
• Community-School-Learner Partnerships
• Interdisciplinary Learning

• UI Common Read
• Every Kid on Tubbs Hill
• Idaho Building Capacity
• Inland Northwest Writing Project (INWP)