Stacey Dunbar

Owner

Stacey Dunbar’s teaching career spans over 25 years in the field of education. Born and raised in the Chicagoland area, her midwestern values of hard work, friendliness, and grit still are the cornerstone of every goal she sets and achieves. In addition, Stacey’s degree in Early Elementary Education (PK-3) from the University of Wisconsin-Madison back in 1998, set her up for a lifelong career of sharing her knowledge and expertise with enthusiasm and passion. Her interest in immersion education was born through obtaining her English as a Second Language (ESL) endorsement while working as a first grade teacher in a Spanish immersion program in Texas in the early 2000’s.

Stacey’s path in the field of education had many twists and turns throughout the years, but her mission remains the same: to inspire the love of learning and empower growth in learning. From Elementary School Teacher, to Educational Consultant focused on providing high quality staff development for bilingual, ESL, and immersion teachers, Stacey began streamlining her craft into a methodology born of research-based practices along with innovative problem solving strategies to combat many of the broken systems within education institution. In 2009, after having her own two children, Stacey opened Aprende con Amigos in the Overlook neighborhood or Portland, Oregon and implemented her newly developed methodology. Dunbar opened a second location in 2016 that currently resides in the Cully neighborhood.

Stacey’s love of learning and deep passion to serve her community continues to lead her down a path of growth in learning. She recently went through a Master’s Level Program through Parent Coaching Institute and became a certified parent coach in 2023. Stacey is inspired to take her love of imparting knowledge and expertise to parents in her preschool community and beyond through coaching and educational workshops and seminars. Visit staceydunbar.com to learn more. In addition, Stacey became a certified Master Trainer in 2024 for the state of Oregon and provides high quality staff development and coaching to her staff and other preschool and daycare directors and educators to ensure our profession is supported in growth and learning and can continue to thrive. Visit aspencenterpdx.com to learn more about her dedication to supporting early childhood directors and educators.

Although Stacey’s teaching is currently geared towards parents and educators, in 2022 she partnered with three long term teachers at Aprende con Amigos to share ownership in the business. She is thrilled to have partnership in the daily operations of the preschools so she can continue to support the community in new and inspiring ways.

When Stacey is not serving her community, she loves to cook a wonderful homemade meal for those she loves and is a foodie who likes to hit the latest Portland restaurant on the “heat map”. She also enjoys spending time in nature hiking, bird watching, or simply spending time in her yard at home.

“TULY” GERTRUDIS NOVOA GARCIA

Owner/Overlook Director

Tuly Novoa is a licensed preschool teacher from Venezuela with extensive experience in early childhood education. She has worked with children in various capacities such as summer camps, in-home child care, tutoring and Spanish immersion programs. As a mother of three, she believes that the most important gift a parent can give to their children is an education. Tuly and her husband have focused on teaching the joy of education and the importance of bilingualism. She is passionate about working with children and enjoys seeing how they progress every day. In 2022, Tuly became co-owner of Aprende con Amigos and is currently the Director of the Overlook location.

TERESA HERNANDEZ

Owner/Cully Director

Teresa Hernandez-Claudio is California born, but Oregon raised. Teresa’s parents are from Baja California, Mexico. She’s the oldest of her siblings. She is a native Spanish speaker, Spanish was her first language until she started grade school.

Teresa has worked with kids for well over a decade. When she first started working with kids, she realized how amazing their little brains work and just how great it is to watch them learn and develop. She also loves to make kids feel loved and happy at school.

Teresa has 2 kids of her own with her high school sweet heart we are nearly grown. Her household is a Spanish speaking home with some English since sadly there is no immersion programs in their district.

When she first started working at Aprende she started off as Floater supporting the teachers and serving snack to the children, she later became the Pollito Teacher. A year later she decided the floating position was best for her schedule. While she was Floater she supported the teachers the most she could and she was able to work with all the kids, which was what she loved the most. Now she’s the Director at the Cully location. She continues to support our teachers at Cully and make our children feel happy and welcome to our school family. Teresa is happy to be part of the Aprende family, She’s grown and have learned so much as a teacher, person, and a parent in the wonderful Aprende community. To further her commitment to our program, Teresa became co-owner of Aprende con Amigos in 2022.

NORMA MORENO

Owner/Curriculum Coordinator

Norma Moreno was born in Mexico and has fond memories from growing up there. After high school, she entered Bachillerato Pedagogico, where she first started her path towards working in educational services. For five years, she worked as a preschool teacher in Mexico. Years later, Norma moved to the US with her husband Fernando and her eldest son Fernando. She enjoyed spending time as a volunteer in her son’s classroom and wanted to continue studying to work towards a career in education. After having her second son Yari, Norma enrolled at Mt Hood Community College to take English courses and work towards earning her Child Development Associate (CDA) certificate. She applied at head start where she worked as a part time assistant for five years and then worked five more years as a fulltime assistant teacher. She enjoyed the 10 years she worked at the Head start program.

In addition to teaching, Norma is very involved in her community. She’s graduated as a parish health promoter in a leadership program and works to help support other Latinos in her community.

She enjoys being part of the Aprende community where she happily teaches in her first language and in 2022 became co-owner of Aprende con Amigos. She currently is the Substitute Director of the Cully location as well as our Curriculum Coordinator.