Faculty/Staff

Tal Birdsey (B.A. Middlebury College, M.A. Breadloaf School of English; 34 years experience)
Tal is the head teacher, co-founder, and director of the school. He teaches writing, literature, social studies, art, student government, and ethics and serves as the school counselor, soccer coach, and 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. Tal has published poetry in journals around the country and is a working visual artist. 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, about a year in the life of teaching and learning at the North Branch School, was published in 2022. Tal has been teaching middle school since 1988.

Rose McVay (B.S. University of Pittsburgh, Materials Science Engineering; 20 years teaching experience at NBS)
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 volunteer.

Steve Holmes (B.A. Colgate University, Mathematics; 6 years teaching experience)
Steve teaches mathematics at the North Branch School. This is Steve's sixth year teaching at North Branch School, having come to us after teaching middle school math at both Otter Valley and Mill River. For 25 years prior to teaching, Steve ran a software development company and worked in computer tech. He is very interested in teaching mathematics using 'real world' examples from his earlier endeavors. Steve has coached many youth sports in the area, including ice hockey, boys and girls lacrosse, basketball, soccer, and, if there is sufficient interest, he has promised to coach the NBS MathCounts team. In his free time he writes children's books, including recently published Emmaline and the Fluffles.

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 as administrative support to the teachers, students, board, and families of the school while working closely with long-time administrator Donna Rutherford. Joanna also oversees the many fundraising events of the school which help to support tuition assistance for families.

Board of Trustees
Mia Allen (Ripton)
Michael Seligmann (Ripton)
Cindy Seligmann (Ripton)
Donna Rutherford (Bristol)
Nate Heilman (New Haven)
Annabelle Maroney (Leicester)
Viscaya Wagner (Burlington)
Joe Nelson (Ferrisburgh)