Rory Tira coordinates farm and garden experiences for the school community.  She brings professional training and 16 years of experience as a 9th grade teacher in Sacramento and Berkeley.  Rory more recently worked in a long term volunteer role at Table Farm in urban Sacramento.  Discovering the joy of outdoor work, organic growing, finding kinship with like minded men and women, and building community made her realize that if you want to be a farmer, go be one.  

Outside of school, Rory is a mom to teenage sons. Much of her favorite parenting has been with her kids wading upstream in creeks, picking blackberries, pulling rainbow trout out of rivers, pulling carrots out of the garden, hanging out with horses and spotting turkeys, egrets, deer, otters, and eagles in their habitats.  That same joy and adventure transfers now to outdoor moments of wonder with students in the school garden. 

Rory studied at U.C. San Diego for her undergrad work and earned her teaching credential and Masters in Education at San Francisco State University.  Se habla español.  In the 1990s, she was part of the Breakthrough Collaborative (at the time called Summerbridge), taught in San Francisco, worked on curriculum design in the national office, and helped pioneer Breakthrough Manchester in New Hampshire.    

Mrs. Tira is a backyard chicken wrangler, a bee keeper’s daughter, and a dog person. She can make dinner with food minutes from the garden.  She can repair a broken irrigation line and teach kindergartners to plant winter crops. But she still does not know how to tell when a watermelon is perfect to pick.