Miss Gutierrez has a Bachelor of Arts in English from Hunter College and a Cambridge ESOL Certificate in EAL, but it was well before college that a career in education had begun for her. As a student at Saint Cyril Academy, an all-girl Catholic boarding school in Danville, Pennsylvania, Miss Gutierrez, took their motto: “enter to learn, leave to serve” seriously. Her sophomore year of high school, she organized a summer volunteer project to travel and live in Central America and teach ESL. She worked with an organization that provided kindergarten classes to underprivileged children in the barrios of the Panama, teaching ESL. She organized everything from the curriculum to the shipment of the one ton of books and materials that were donated to help her on her mission. It was there, that she fell in love with teaching.

Shortly after graduation from SCA, she founded a non-profit organization that works to provide arts-in-education and ESL programs for underprivileged children in marginalized areas of Central America. It was important to her to keep this work going, and through the Fundación Ignacio, she has been able to develop and implement programs such as an annual arts summer camp, visiting teacher and artists residencies to lead and teach, as well as a number of professional development programs. The most recent program was developed to work with the Secretaria de Educacion de San Andres Isla, Colombia, where Miss Shuttleworth and Mr. Campbell presented a series of lectures and lessons the public school teachers of the Island.

It was through the Fundación that Ms. Gutierrez, saw the need for an open and equal platform for young, urban, underprivileged artists and filmmakers to exhibit and develop their work, and therefore, established and directs an annual international art and film festival in Panama City, Panama. Film, artwork, and interviews from the festival are featured weekly on the Festival’s local cable-access program in New York City, hosted by Ms. Gutierrez.

After receiving her BA in English, she was promptly hired by BL International, an Italian study abroad language immersion program for elementary school children, where she combined English language learning with the sights and sounds of the cities and countries they visited. Upon her return to New York, she worked for Rennert Bilingual, where she taught ESL, Business English, TOFEL preparation, and an intensive American Film elective to their international student body.

Believing that it is the responsibility of teachers to always pursue and advance their own education, she is currently working towards her Master’s in Teaching English as an Additional Language (TESOL) at Hunter College.

Ms. Gutierrez truly loves her work with the students of BIS-NY. In helping them develop their English language skills, she strives to make them more comfortable with and confident in, not only their English speaking, reading, writing, and learning, but in their lives at BIS-NY.

Qualifications

B.A., Literature, Hunter College, NYC Publication Date: 04/08/2010 57
ESOL Cert. English Lang. Teaching, Univ. of Cambridge Teaching Hse, NYC