Elisabeth Atanes is the Spanish teacher on the Sequoia team. This is her 5th year at AMS; she and her family moved to Ashland from Georgia to be closer to family on the West Coast. Before coming to AMS, she taught Spanish at Eagle Point High School and was an English Language Learners (ELL) teacher as well as Spanish teacher in Georgia.
Elisabeth is married to Francisco Atanes, the assistant principal at AHS, and has 4 children in the Ashland School District—Nico (6th grade here at AMS), Matthew (5th grade at Helman), Leia (2nd), and Gabriela (Kindergarten).
Besides skiing and camping, Elisabeth loves to travel. Her family spent a month in Spain this past summer and she twice spent semesters abroad while in college (which is how she met her husband ).
About AMS, Elisabeth says, “I like the team structure. I’ve never experienced anything like that before. The staff are so happy and they challenge students. Also, AMS is just a beautiful environment for learning.”