Charis Johnson

Garrett O’Brien

Hi! I'm Charis Johnson and I have joined Old Firehouse School Mill Valley as Administrative Assistant Director. I grew up in Berkeley and graduated from Mills College with a BA in Ancient History and minor in Child Development in 2009.

I have worked with children in various settings since 2002. Summer camps and youth sports was my first job throughout high school. In college and after, I invested my time in multiple youth centered care including volunteering in local elementary schools, 10 years in a drop-off care for 8 weeks-6 year olds, 11 years between leading summer camps and heading inclusion programs for special needs children. I was chosen to spearhead a new early literacy program for Berkeley toddlers and parents by the National YMCA in 2012 and afterwards, I was an Afterschool Program Director for a local charter school.

In 2016, I transitioned to work solely in the special needs community as a Applied Behavior Analyst Technician and Behavior Intervention Specialist. I had a desire to work one-on-one with students and be able to show tangible, observable and impactful growth. I worked with 8 students from 2 years-teenage with an emphasis on communicative and independence skills, naturalistic teaching and critical thinking/sociability through play. Similarly to OFS’s foundations of continuity of care, I fostered a special attachment and improvement with one child that I had my whole career as they aged from 6 to 13.

I am excited to join Old Firehouse School and feel particularly inspired by their attention to and application of attachment theory. OFS focus on diverse student perspectives and collaboration speak to my natural propensity to seek out new people, worlds, opinions as well as to look for and create harmony. Outside of the office, I enjoy reading, DIY crafts and everything about babies so bring on the funny/cute/crazy stories!

I am Garrett O’Brien, Program Director of Old Firehouse School Mill Valley. I have been teaching preschool since 2016 and with Old Firehouse School since 2018. Before OFS, I taught at College of Marin’s Lab school then at Marin Day School. Besides teaching preschool, I have been working with children since I was able to be a camp counselor in 6th grade. I also have coached lacrosse for middle school children.

I grew up in Novato, CA and graduated from CSU East Bay with my B.S in Early Childhood Development. What I love most about working at OFS is our project work which allows us the freedom for the children to explore their interests and get to create activities that will help them work on different domains as we dive deeper into a topic. During my time at Old Firehouse, I have been able to teach some classes to the new teachers. I also have spoken at a couple of conferences about our approach to curriculum.

During my time as a teacher, I was able to do some really fun projects with my groups. My projects have explored safety, mutual perspective taking, the scientific method, and developing a growth mindset. I love seeing the children’s ideas unfold and being alongside them while they are making discoveries about their world. From one year, where they did a rescue project that introduced them to listening to others perspectives and thinking outside of themselves as they explored how to protect others. To another, where a group wanted to vote on what to learn next and it was volcanoes. But instead of just learning about a volcano, this project allowed for them to be introduced to the scientific method and trial and error. This allowed them to create experiments for how we build volcanoes or how to make a volcano erupt and taught them how to struggle through a process to find the answer.

Outside of work, I enjoy rollerblading, hiking, reading and playing video games.