Faculty/Staff

Tal Birdsey (B.A. Middlebury College, M.A. Breadloaf School of English) Tal has been teaching middle school since 1988, and is the head teacher, co-founder, and director of the North Branch School. He teaches writing, literature, social studies, art, student government, and ethics and serves as the school counselor, school newsletter and literary magazine editor. He's been State of Vermont licensed and certified, and has taught previously at the Paideia School in Atlanta, Georgia, and abroad in Taiwan. In 2008, he published a book about the founding and first year of North Branch School, entitled A Room for Learning: The Making of a School in Vermont (St. Martin's Press). Tal's second book, Hearts of the Mountain: A Teacher, Adolescents, and a Living School (Green Writers Press), about a year in the life of teaching and learning at the North Branch School, was published in 2022. Tal is a working visual artist, with occasional showings around Vermont. Over the years he has published poetry in a variety of magazines and reviews. He has a book of poems, Burnt Mountain Blues, forthcoming from Green Writers Press in 2027. He lives in Ripton, just down the road from the school.

Rose McVay (B.S. University of Pittsburgh, Materials Science Engineering) Rose is the Associate Head of School and teaches physical, earth & space, and life sciences. Rose began teaching at North Branch in 2004, as the math teacher, having studied engineering, physics, adolescent psychology, and education. She taught math for thirteen years, created an after school ceramics program, coached the NBS MathCounts team, designed a stained-glass curriculum, designed sets for the school plays, taught drawing, sculpture and painting, founded the NBS Wiffleball League, and created the NBS Labyrinth. Outside of NBS she has completed coursework at Vermont Mathematics Initiative and Vermont Energy Education Program, taught ceramics at Middlebury Studio School, and worked with a local retirement community and as a WomenSafe / Atria Collective volunteer.

Andy Soares White (BS Computer Science, Bentley University, MBA, Boston University) Andy joined North Branch in 2026 as the school’s math teacher after a career that took a somewhat unconventional path to the classroom. After more than 20 years working in finance, operations, and higher education, including most recently as CFO of a global nonprofit focused on antibiotic resistance, he decided it was time to pursue a long-standing interest in teaching. Andy loves helping students see math not simply as a collection of rules and formulas, but as a way of thinking, exploring, solving problems, and making sense of the world. He lives in Lincoln with his wife, Lindsay, and their daughter, River, and spends much of his time outside of school exploring Vermont and playing entirely too many board games.

Mia Allen (left; co-founder and mother of alums Sophie '04, Walker '06 and Lydia '10) chairs the NBS Board of Directors and oversees longterm strategic initiatives of the school.

Donna Rutherford (right; mother of alums Nick '04 and Devlin '06) provides administrative support to the students, families, faculty, board, and staff of the school. In addition, she cheerfully offers unending supplies of #2 pencils to all.

Joanna Doria works in the office at NBS supporting the teachers, students, board, and families of the school. Joanna oversees the many fundraising events of the school which help to support tuition assistance for families.

Board of Trustees
Viscaya Wagner (Hinesburg)
Mia Allen (Ripton)
Michael Seligmann (Ripton)
Cindy Seligmann (Ripton)
Donna Rutherford (Bristol)
Annabelle Maroney (Lincoln)
Joe Nelson (Ferrisburgh)
Deborah Lubar (Lincoln)
Matt Utterback (Weybridge)
Hadley Mueller (Burlington)