Brittany Montgomery

Mrs. Brittany Montgomery grew up in Frisco, Texas and attended Dallas Baptist University for her undergraduate work. She later went on to Dallas Theological Seminary for her graduate work where she earned her MA in Cross-Cultural Ministries. The majority of her professional years have been in the church environment, working on the administrative side of caring for missionaries, sending mission teams around the world and, Lord-willing, safely home again. Brittany has a heart for seeing the Gospel reach the ends of the earth, and she believes that all-important work begins in the home.

Brittany and her husband, Cody, have three beautiful daughters. They are so immensely grateful for Potomac Classical and the ways it has answered the prayers of their family for their kids’ educations. Currently their three school-aged children attend, and they are big fans of Potomac Classical. Cody serves as an elder at Del Ray Baptist Church where they have both been members since moving to Alexandria in 2017.

To find Brittany outside of school hours, you should look for her in the kitchen, cooking up something delicious. Be sure to talk loudly, though, because she definitely can’t hear you over her audiobook.

Alice McDaniel

Mrs. Alice McDaniel’s passion for teaching started early, as she was always teacher’s helper throughout her years at public school and then was asked to tutor in college. After marrying and moving to Canada and then to Texas, Alice’s love of education expressed itself through homeschooling her own son and daughter through their grade school years.

During this time, Alice felt burdened to encourage other homeschooling parents who can often feel overwhelmed so she used her administrative gifts to help form the Homeschool Enrichment Classes in Bartonville, Texas. Being a popular homeschooling area, the co-op immediately filled to the capacity of 250 students, with 100 families represented. Alice enjoyed both teaching some classes and working as the director.

Alice’s time in education transitioned when she was asked to join Coram Deo Academy, a classical Christian, university-model school in the Dallas, Texas area as it was just starting out in 1999. Becoming personally convinced of the classical method of education, Alice also enrolled both her children there and thus began her years of teaching in the classroom. Alice was blessed with many sixth and seventh grade students to whom she taught Speech, History, Great Books, and her signature class, Art & Music Appreciation. After 19 years there, Alice felt drawn to Alexandria, Virginia by the call of grandbabies.

Now in her fifth year of teaching at Potomac Classical, Alice is thoroughly enjoying teaching grammar-age children. Two of her five grandchildren attend the school. You may hear them calling her “NiNi.”

Alice attended Bethany Bible College and West Valley College, both in the gorgeous Bay Area of Northern California, majoring in Interior Design. Later, she earned a BA in the Humanities from Harrison Middleton University, a Great Books University.

Museums, especially art museums, great architecture, formal gardens, and really anything beautiful draws Alice’s attention. You will often find her taking a friend or grandchild along on a short jaunt to one of the multitude of sites that are available in this area. Feel free to ask to go along.

Alice is a member of Del Ray Baptist Church and she relishes recounting the ways God's hand of mercy, faithfulness and care are evident in all the details throughout her life. She prays that she will be able to encourage all her students at Potomac Classical to know, love, and trust in Christ.

Sandy Talone

Mrs. Sandy Talone was born and raised in New Jersey and relocated to Northern Virginia in 2021. Her love for teaching children began when she was 16 and was asked to help teach an evening Bible class at her local church. Through the years, her joy and focus has been teaching in her local church. Whether the need was for Children’s Equipping Hour, Kids Church, Vacation Bible School, Pioneer Girls, or Youth Group, she was happy and delighted to have the opportunity. Now, four decades later, her passion for helping future generations know, love, and walk with God is one of her greatest delights. Being part of the PCC family, where four of her ten grandchildren are students, is a gift from God.

This is Sandy’s third year serving in the PCC Kindergarten classroom. She is passionate and excited about the education PCC is providing for her grandchildren and other children of local Christian families. 

Sandy married her high school sweetheart and is blessed with four children and 10 grandchildren. She was actively involved in ministry at the church where her husband served as the pastor for over 20 years before the Lord called him home. Sandy continues to be drawn to children’s ministries, women’s ministries, and hospitality.

She loves spending time with her children and grandchildren. She absolutely loves serving her precious church family. Her favorite way to spend her weekends is by making her home pretty and clean, reading, listening to a good sermon, laughing, and enjoying God’s creation with her grandchildren. 

Jocelyn Amesbury

Ms. Jocelyn Amesbury was blessed to have been raised in a loving Christian family who shared the gospel with her from the very beginning. She and her brothers were homeschooled and enjoyed the diverse opportunities provided by the family's frequent moves with the military. This flexible education nurtured her love of reading and of exploring the many good, beautiful things God's world contains.

Jocelyn graduated summa cum laude from The College of William & Mary with a Bachelor of Arts in Government and Japanese Studies, initially working in the realm of law as a paralegal. However, over time she realized that getting to explain concepts to others – even in a context as dry as demonstrating how to operate the printer! – was where her true passion lay. Through a series of providential events, she returned to school and earned a Master of Arts in English from George Washington University. Along the way, she has enjoyed a variety of experiences in academia, such as tutoring undergraduate students in writing skills, leading early elementary ESL instruction, and editing for an academic journal.

Having served previously at PCC as a teachers' aide, Jocelyn is delighted to be teaching second grade and looks forward to the discoveries that she and the students will be making together. In her spare time, Jocelyn loves to gather with her church family at Del Ray Baptist, read and write poetry, draw, take long walks, and investigate the finest offerings of children's literature.

Margot Anderson

Margot Anderson is a mother of two who fell in love with classical education when she began homeschooling her son for kindergarten. Searching for more community, she discovered the beauty of the hybrid-school model at Potomac Classical Conservatory, where her children have attended school since 2019. Through her involvement in her children’s schooling, she has found her interests increasingly drawn toward education and the humanities, and somewhat providentially, she finds herself now a faculty member of PCC!

Margot grew up an Air Force brat, spending her childhood in Colorado, Hawaii, and Virginia. She is a distinguished graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy, where she earned a B.S. in Political Science and minored in Russian. She served for 7 years as an active duty intelligence officer and presently serves as a reservist. She also holds an M.A. in Political Philosophy from Catholic University of America, where she was immersed in the great works of classical and modern political thought. In 2014, she and her husband Jeff (also an Air Force brat) moved from the Central Coast of California to Alexandria, not far from PCC. 

 In her free time, Margot enjoys great literature, running, swimming, hiking with her family, viewing and dabbling in art, traveling, and playing with her naughty dog, Rockford. Among her favorite authors are George Eliot, Jane Austen, Edith Wharton, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Leo Tolstoy—whose works she finds particularly steeped in the Gospel. Thanks to Air Force life, Jeff and Margot have attended a variety of Lutheran and Anglican churches since childhood and now call St. Andrew and St. Margaret’s Anglican Church in Del Ray home.    

Molly Leeman

Mrs. Molly Leeman was born in Indiana and raised in the suburbs of Chicago. In 1999, she earned a degree in Elementary Education and Psychology from Bethel University in St. Paul, Minnesota. Her first job was teaching special education to 16-21 year-olds — a great joy and a challenge! A year later, Molly married Philip, her college sweetheart, and moved to DC. She continued teaching special education at St. Coletta School in Alexandria, VA. Two years later she left the classroom to start a family and later became a homeschool mom when her oldest son began kindergarten. After one year, she was hooked. Molly homeschooled her oldest son, Jackson, through 10th grade, Audrey through 8th, and continues to homeschool her youngest son, Max.

Molly enjoys researching and learning all she can about education and how kids learn. This curiosity drew Molly to classical education and The Well Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer. The principles of classical education have shaped her educational choices since the beginning of her homeschool journey and continue to shape her teaching in the classroom.

Molly comes to Potomac Classical with over seventeen years' experience in public, private, and home settings. Most recently, she taught grammar, writing, literature, and Latin to elementary and middle school students at a homeschool cooperative. Molly considers it a privilege to co-labor with homeschooling parents, encouraging them to embrace their role as primary teacher.

She is a longtime member of Capitol Hill Baptist Church where she is regularly challenged to love the Lord with her whole heart, to reject sin, and to grow in holiness. In her spare time, she enjoys cooking, drinking good coffee, reading, cheering on her kids at sporting events, and spending time with her family and friends.

Elisa Quigley

Mrs. Elisa Quigley grew up in a small town in northern Illinois, where she was homeschooled through eighth grade. She holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Olivet Nazarene University and a master’s degree in English Literature and Rhetoric/Composition from Northern Illinois University. 

In the summer of 2021, Elisa graduated with her master’s degree, got married, and moved across the country to Austin, Texas. In Austin, she spent one amazing year teaching third graders at a classical Christian school called Grace Academy of Georgetown. At Grace, she learned to love teaching in a classical environment; she appreciated the classical program’s structure/routines, focus on the joy of learning, and emphasis on language. She had originally planned to pursue a Ph.D. in English. However, she gradually realized that she was much more likely to be able to teach her true loves–the great books and English grammar–in a classical school setting.

Elisa hopes to instill a relish for life and a passionate love of reading and learning in all of her students. She seeks to use literature to teach students about the realities of good and evil, right and wrong, beauty and ugliness. In her free time, she enjoys reading literature, playing the violin, writing, singing, gardening, hiking, and traveling. Some of her favorite writers include Tolkien, Austen, Tolstoy, Faulkner, Shakespeare, C.S. Lewis, and Wendell Berry. 

The Quigleys are members of Falls Church Anglican Church.

Ashton Long

Ashton Long grew up in Memphis, TN. As a young girl, she wanted to have a career that helped people. She decided to go into the medical field, where her love of learning about science and math blossomed. In 2006, Ashton married her high school sweetheart, Trenten Long. In 2008, Ashton graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of Memphis Loewenberg School of Nursing with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing. After working as a registered nurse for two years, she returned to school to become a family nurse practitioner. In 2014, she graduated with a Master of Science in Nursing degree and passed the national certification to become a family nurse practitioner. Working full-time as a FNP took a lot of time away from her growing family. So, in 2017 with her fourth child on the way, she quit working outside the home and started full-time homeschooling. 

Ashton’s husband, Trenten, became an active duty Navy Chaplain in 2009. Since then, her family has moved up and down the east coast, participating in various churches, ministries, and communities. Their last duty station was in Camp Lejeune, NC, where Ashton discovered Grace Classical School, a hybrid school. She enrolled her children and found it to be the perfect fit for her family. Shortly after starting at GCS, there was a need for more teachers, and Ashton decided to jump in mid-year to teach 5th grade. This past year, she taught senior-level advanced math and high school and middle school sciences classes. In her spare time, Ashton enjoys drinking coffee and relaxing with her family in their camper. Traveling in their camper is a favorite pastime for her family—once traveling as far as the Grand Canyon.

Valentina Diaz Gomez

Bio coming soon…

Jennifer Geletzke

Mrs. Jennifer Geletzke was born and raised in Texas. She attended the University of Texas at Tyler where she studied art and then attended the University of Delaware to earn her MFA in Studio Art. She met her husband, Travis, in Annapolis, MD shortly after graduation and married into the military just ten months later.  In their fourteen years of marriage, they have lived in Florida, Texas, North Carolina, California, Alabama, Hawaii, and now Virginia. They have two children, Julie and Jonathan.

After a tumultuous year in public school, God led them to place their children in a classical Christian school, Trinity Christian in Kailua, HI. Soon after, through God’s perfect plan, she became the school’s elementary art teacher.  Being a part of the classical Christian community has been life-changing for their family, and she has found that joining the mission of Potomac Classical has been exciting. She has a passion for developing a love of art in children and exposing them to the ways in which God speaks to our hearts through art.

When not in school, you can find Jennifer in her studio creating rhythmic, meditative drawings with graphite and watercolor.  It is her aim to bring a sense of calm and peace into people’s homes when her work is displayed there.  Over the past two years, she has grown a small business selling her work and gained gallery representation in Haleiwa and Waikiki, HI. She also loves hand quilting, gardening, reading, and spending time in nature. 

Ronna Traylor

Ms. Ronna Traylor was born into a family of teachers, married into a family of teachers, and taught high school English for a decade before she began to teach art to younger students. She enjoyed both art and literature as a youth, but didn’t have the opportunity to take art classes until after her BA in English from Texas A & M and completion of her teaching certification while living in Houston, Texas. That first art class as an adult was pivotal in shaping her attitude about art education for kids. 

Ronna moved to Alexandria with her husband, Patrick, in 1995 for him to focus on environmental law at GW. She taught English at Langley High School while he completed his LLM and joined a firm in DC. Ronna enrolled in watercolor classes through The Art League School in Alexandria, but was limited to summer classes only while she taught full time. A two year break from full time teaching allowed her to enroll in multiple classes at the Art League and find her niche in watercolor. When she returned to full time teaching, she continued her art education during summer classes and managed to keep painting on weekends.

In hopes of beginning a family, Ronna did not return to the high school classroom in 2004. She and Patrick were blessed with the birth of their son, Benjamin, in January of 2006. The Art League School’s classes and instructors continued to grow Ronna’s personal interest in art and began to flame the spark that her first art class in Houston had struck. Ronna realized her interest in art had been a constant since childhood, but that after basic art classes in elementary school, her view had been that art was only for talented artists. Her entire approach to art education was shaped in the desire to ensure other students did not believe a similar falsehood. Ralph Waldo Emerson’s quote, “Every artist was once an amateur,” resonates in her mind, and is there as the base for her instruction to young students.

It is with that mindset that she joyfully approaches art instruction at Potomac Classical. Ronna was blessed to have been raised in a Christian home, blessed by the sound gospel truths taught at Capitol Hill Baptist Church for decades, and most recently blessed by the new church family at Del Ray Baptist Church where she and her husband are now members.