Mme Penny was born and raised in the Outaouais/ Ottawa region. She started her schooling in Aylmer, Québec, and moved to Ottawa in 6th grade, where she attended various Ottawa schools, including the University of Ottawa, graduating with an Honours degree in Lettres françaises and a Bachelor of Education with a specialty in French as a Second Language Teaching.
Since 1999, she has taught in various school boards at the primary, junior, and intermediate levels as a Core French teacher as well as a homeroom teacher in the Early, Middle, Late, and Extended Immersion programs.
As an educator, Mme Penny finds immense joy in bringing people and/ or organizations into her classroom to enhance the curriculum. Her most recent classroom pedagogy focus has been particularly in the realm of STEM/ Coding and critical thinking through science and literacy. She has worked closely with organizations such as Canadian Geographic as well as being an Ambassador with Kids Code Jeunesse. She is also a certified DELF corrector/assessor and worked on Ministry of Education initiatives that provide teachers with exemplars for DELF assessments.
Over the last couple of years, she has enjoyed working with the terrific staff and students at JOA and feels blessed to be a part of this school community helping out in various capacities such as launching the Managebac and the Open Apply platforms this past year, as well as anything else that is needed to help support teachers and staff. Mme Penny speaks French, English, and Greek and in her free time, she enjoys walking, cooking new recipes, watching movies, and traveling when she can.