Shauna Peet
Lead Teacher (she/her)
Shauna was born and raised in Chicago. She strongly identifies as a midwesterner, but despite that fact she has spent significant time on both the east and west coasts and lived in China for a year as well. She received her BA from Yale University and then moved to San Francisco. She was an assistant teacher at a preschool there and was on her way to getting a teaching degree when an opportunity to teach in Western China presented itself. She taught English to high school and college students and ate some of the best noodles of her life in the provincial capital where she lived. She moved back to the U.S., received an MSW from Boston University in 2002 and spent three years as a geriatric social worker in the Boston area.
Shauna became a mother in 2005 which brought her home to Chicago to be near family. She was introduced to Park West as a parent in 2007 when she and her daughter were enrolled in the Tots program. Serving as an Assisting Parent in the two years that followed reminded Shauna of her time working at the preschool in San Francisco and how much she loved that age and that setting. This led her to Erikson Institute where she graduated in 2017 with an MS in Early Childhood Education, and then she returned to Park West as a teacher. In her almost ten years working at the school, Shauna has been a teacher with all the age groups, from Tots to JK. As a 2-Day/3-Day teacher, she loves being there for her students in their foundational first year of school, helping them navigate group life away from home by supporting them as they begin to develop the social and emotional skills needed to be part of a school community. Outside of school Shauna enjoys getting out into nature, pickling vegetables in the summer and listening to live music whenever possible.