Mrs. Barnett transplanted to the AV in 1994. She attended USC (Fight on!!!) and CSU Bakersfield. She's been with the district for 23 years. She has 8 kids and describes herself as the "crazy sports mom." Mrs. Barnett is thankful that her favorite sport it is football because she spends most of her weekends watching her sons play football!  In the little spare time she has away from kids sports she loves to design shirts for her friends and family and loves to do anything crafty.  She says that she hates to cook but I love to bake. In the future Mrs. Barnett looks forward to moving to Colorado when her son graduates from high school.  

Ms. Beach was born and raised here in the Antelope Valley.  She graduated from Palmdale High School in 2000 and went to Antelope Valley College where she completed most of her AA and then took a break to raise her daughter and help her husband with his business.  After her father passed away unexpectedly she decided to go back to school to finish her degree.  She was accepted to UC Santa Cruz and her family moved to Northern California.  She graduated in 2009 right in the middle of the recession.  No one was hiring and colleges weren't accepting students, so she and her husband got creative with an old hobby of his and became professional falconers.  For the next 5 years they worked with vineyards and landfills to keep pest bird species away from the grapes and trash.  Her job was to take care of the hawks and falcons, feed them, administer medications and clean their enclosures.  Ms. Beach hopes to bring her love of birds to our students in the form of an assembly later this school year! Eventually Ms. Beach returned to the Antelope Valley with her kids and began working as a tutor for Learn4Life.  Her Learn 4 Life coworkers encouraged her to become a teacher so she entered the Teacher Prep Program at Brandman University and is currently working on completing her internship as a Science Teacher.  In the future she would love to train other teachers and develop curriculum that is engaging for the 21st century learners in schools today.

Mrs. Cole graduated from Highland High School in 2003 and got her Bachelor's degree in English Education in 2007. Her husband is also a teacher (9th grade Biology) and basketball coach at Knight High. Mrs. Cole has 3.5 kids, Madison, Christopher, Dominic, and a semi-adopted grown son named DaJour. Her free time is completely full of sports: Maddie and CJ both play club soccer, she loves going to Pete Knight's Basketball games, and DaJour will soon be playing basketball at AVC. Mrs. Cole is also a student and is working on her Master's degree in Curriculum & Instruction through Grand Canyon University. Her favorite pastimes are dressing up like a crazy person when they go to LA Galaxy games with the family every 4th of July and getting new shoes from her husband for every holiday.   

Ms. Finks comes to us from small town Iowa where she grew up as a mortician's daughter (which probably explains her love for science and the human body)! She graduated with her Bachelor's degree from Drake University and her Master's in Business Administration from Creighton University. Ms. Finks has two beautiful, kind, successful kids (who are now adulting) and enjoys traveling the world with them! She has been to a variety of countries doing missionary work and aspires to make it to every country someday. 

Mr. Henzie lives in the Santa Clarita Valley, is married and has three children in grades 7, 8, and 9.  He played a lot of sports growing up and ended up playing collegiate baseball. This is his 22nd year teaching, his second year teaching History and his first year teaching GTT / HCA.  He loves spending time with his family, going on family vacations, watching his sons play baseball & swimming and his daughter acting in plays.  Mr. Henzie enjoys playing sports and being creative. Something you may not know about Mr. Henzie is that he has invented two sports, one of which is being sold in PE catalogs called "Tugball" and the other is in development called "Ricochet."

Mrs. Ojeda has a Bachelor's degree in Mathematics from Cal State University, Bakersfield and has been teaching for 12 years (this is year 13). She loves her kids (students) and teaching! In her free time, she enjoys running, spending time with her husband Cris, bonus child Arianna, friends, and family. AND... she is a proud auntie! One of Mrs. O's favorite pastimes is going to concerts as she loves live music! In addition she is a self-proclaimed sports enthusiast and has coached cross country, track and field, and basketball. She loves watching football (Go Chiefs!) and NASCAR (Jimmie Johnson is her favorite driver). Mrs. O admits that she watches too much TV and doesn't go outside enough, so she is working on that! Mrs. O says that she is a constant work in progress and is continually aiming to be a better person and that she is happy and blessed with her life and everyone in it!  

Mr. Pratt graduated from Antelope Valley High School in 1991. From there he went to The Master’s College at the age of 38 where he completed his Bachelor's degree. Mr. Pratt has been teaching Physical Education for the past 5 years. He loves his students and teaching them to develop lifetime habits and leadership qualities through the program "Leadership Development Through Physical Education (L.D.T.P.E)." In his free time, he enjoys spending time with his wife Rhonda, daughters Tia and Georgia, friends, playing golf, playing music and serving at his church. Some of Coach Pratt's favorite pastimes are being the Varsity Golf Coach at Quartz Hill High School and playing music with his dad.

Mrs. Luna is 25 years old and a mother of 3! She has an 11 year old, a 5 year old and a 5.5 month old!

This is her 3rd year serving as a Pupil Services Technician and she loves her job! She has worked for the Antelope Valley Union High School District for 8 years and is very good at what she does.  In addition to serving the students and families within our community, she loves cooking (Fat Fridays), dancing and being the reason someone smiles  She looks forward to watching her kids grow up, get married and becoming a grandma (someday)! 

Mr. Zeke Dorado has always envisioned himself working with kids. This is his third year as an AVID tutor for Palmdale prep.  Recently he graduated from College of the Canyons with an AA in psychology and is currently attending CSUN where he is working towards his B.A in psychology. In the future he plans to obtain his Masters in counseling so he can become a school counselor. He is the first member of his family to earn a college degree and hopes to be an example for his nieces and nephews so that they find inspiration from their uncle to achieve something greater! Zeke loves to play basketball (you will often see him on the court playing with the kids) and can give anyone buckets! He also loves watching basketball and knows his Lakers will take the championship this year!   

Krista Hawkins is a licensed clinical Marriage and Family Therapist and Registered Art Therapist. She has over 10 years of professional experience working with youth and adults with co-occurring mental health challenges.  Krista graduated from Loyola Marymount University with a Master's degree in Marriage and Family Therapy with a specialization in Clinical Art Therapy.  Krista is employed as one of four Educational Social Worker's for the Antelope Valley Union High School District. She currently supports Antelope Valley High School, Knight Preparatory Academy, Lancaster High School, Palmdale Preparatory Academy, SOAR Preparatory Academy, and the Virtual Academy.  Additionally, as an Educational Social Worker she assists with student referrals and linkage to community mental health services, mental health referral management, short-term individual therapy, Psychiatric Mobile Response Team (PMFT) follow up, assistance with the ongoing school management and monitoring of students identified by the School Threat Assessment and Response Team (START), and she collaborates with community attendance workers (CAW), school counselors, school psychologist, PBIS, At-Risk Coordinators, and teachers to identify and support students who could benefit from these services. 

Katherine Hernandez has been working in education for 2 years as a tutor. First at College of the Canyons and now at Palmdale prep academy. She currently attends UCR and College of the Canyons. She is also a choreographer and dancer in the AV. She is Majoring in English and Biological science with a minor in Dance. She hopes to become a High school English teacher. Her favorite sport is Basketball (Los Angeles Lakers) and she loves to cook on her free time.   

DeLisa House for 6 years has been employed with Antelope Valley Unified School District, most recent position at Palmdale Prep Academy,  as an Instructional Aide where she has been a support to the students and teachers.  The students look forward to her motivational engagement and encouragement.  As she always says to the students, " You got this", her goal is to instill hope and drive. She is a loving wife and a mother of two daughters and a primary caretaker to her amazing mother, who suffers from dementia.  In her spare time she loves to garden, and cook different cuisines from around the world.   Just in case you are wondering, her must watch television show is, Diners,  Drive-ins  and Dives.   Mrs. House is looking forward to the school year and working with such an awesome team of Professionals at Palmdale Prep Academy

This school year will be Mrs. Krohn's 13th year working for the Antelope Valley HS District. She is originally from the San Fernando Valley, but moved to Palmdale in the early 80's to work for Rockwell International building wiring harnesses for the B1 Bomber program.  She transitioned to working in IT in 1990, back when your hard drive was a floppy disk and not everyone knew what Windows was.  Mrs. Krohn is the proud Mom of 2 grown sons and enjoys spending time with family, gardening, playing video/computer games (of course), and going to the beach as much as possible.

Ms. Marchant graduated high school in 1998, then earned an Associates degree in Business.  She has been working for the district for over 13 years and has been at AAV since we opened, making her an OG! She loves working at AAV and updates / designs our school website (so go check it out)!  Ms. Marchant enjoys spending most of her free time with her two teenage sons who are 13 and 16 years old. After work and on most weekends her boys keep her busy with sports and school activities.

My name is Karen Neal.  This is my 5^th school year as the Site Data Technician for Academies of the Antelope Valley. Before coming to AAV I was the Library Media Technician at Knight High School.  I was born and raised here in the Antelope Valley and like most of us raised here, I have a love/hate relationship with it.  I love the hot summers but I hate the wind! My family consists of my husband of 37 years, Brett, my son Chris and his wife Nicole, my daughter Kelsey and her husband Chris and our sweet granddaughter Taylor. We are also anxiously awaiting a second granddaughter in February 2020!  In my free time I like to hang out by water, any kind of water.  My husband and I love to visit the beach and all of my family are avid water skiers.  I learned to waterski when I was only 7 years old.  We also love Disneyland and go as often as we can. I love my job and the people I get to work with every day.  

Rachel Riede has been working in education for less than a year as a tutor. Only ever at Palmdale Preparatory Academy . She currently attends Antelope Valley College and is undeclared for a major, but has a lot of interests. She is obsessed with Harry Potter and can beat almost every single quiz shes ever taken #gryffindorgang  #always  Fun Fact: Rachel had Mrs. Cole as an English teacher for 7th and 8th grade!

Mrs. Tucker graduated from Palmdale High in 2005 (go Falcons!) After high school she went to a vocational school to become a dental assistant but after completing her training she landed a job with the district and never looked back. She has worked at several of our high schools and has been with the district for 13 years. At home she has 3 amazing kiddos that she loves with all her heart. She's obsessed with the TV show “This is Us” as well as “The Office” which she binge watches in her spare time. After her kids are grown she hopes to one day become a cowgirl and spend her days trail riding. Fun Facts about Mrs. Tucker: 1. When she was 13, she adopted and trained a wild mustang who she named Reno. 2. She can be extremely competitive. 3. She really enjoys working at Palmdale Prep and loves all of her coworkers.