Vanessa Phillips

Vanessa Phillips will be starting her third year as the Director. She worked as a homeroom teacher at Kino from 2006-2012, during which she taught primarily high school and junior high English classes. She is looking forward to offering high school and junior high English classes again, as well as ceramics lessons.

Vanessa grew up in New Jersey, but moved to Tucson at 19 and graduated from the University of Arizona with a B.F.A. in Art Education, with an emphasis in ceramics. In 2012, she returned to Montclair State University in New Jersey to pursue her M.A. in English, with a dual emphasis in Writing Studies and American Literature. Her master’s thesis, “Free Schools and Self-Efficacy Beliefs: Research for an Alternative,” interviewed Kino graduates pursuing higher education on their self-efficacy beliefs and writing skills. She is certified to teach high school English, and worked as a public high school English teacher and Humanities lecturer at the New Jersey Institute of Technology before returning to Kino in 2021.

Vanessa is very happy to be in the desert and far away from New Jersey winters. In her free time, she likes to do glasswork and pottery, play board games, and run. She has one daughter who will be attending Kino this year.