Galilee Christian School
Admin Team
Director Curriculum/Instruction: Leigh Pappalardo
Director Enrollment/Communication: Christi Hendershot
Office Administrator: Allison Powell
Uniquely structured to meet the many demands of early childhood education and care, Galilee has created a "dream team" for leadership. By leveraging skillsets, areas of expertise and varied experiences the families of Galilee Christian School are in the very best hands. Each Administrator has current hands-on classroom experience to remain closely aligned with the real world needs of students and staff. Every decision, action and event is anchored in a love for all things preschool and a dedication to providing top notch care and education.
Leigh Pappalardo takes her 14 years of teaching experience plus her passion for early childhood education to lead the teachers at Galilee with their approach to curriculum and instruction. She works tirelessly to keep up with the every changing landscape of literacy training, fine motor development and social emotional learning. Her flair for spontaneous creativity in the classroom has been inspiring to colleagues and families over the years. She created Geography Fridays for her classes to expand their knowlege of places and cultures. Galilee is lucky to have her to help guide teachers to meet little learners where they are! Leigh loves her family, friends and mascots!
Christi Hendershot has taught at Galilee for 8 years. Prior to her time as a preschool teacher, she worked for many years as a marketing executive for Wunderman Thompson (now VML) where she helped clients develop marketing strategy and relationship marketing campaigns. Christi also has served as the primary communicator with parents for many local nonprofit organizations (e.g., Algonkian PTA, Cascades Rapids Swim Team, PFHS Boosters). These skills merged with her continued preschool teaching experience makes her the perfect fit to lead ongoing parent communication and enrollment! You can find Christi with her family cheering for the Yankees, Knicks or Giants in her free time!
This will be Allison Powell's fourth year working at Galilee, but she's been a part of the community since 2018 when her oldest started attending. He is now entering middle school and her daughter attends Countryside, where she is a PTA board member and cookie manager for her Girl Scout troop. She brings her connection to Galilee, her stellar organization skills and a "can do" attitude which makes her the perfect office administrator! When not at preschool, you can find her shuttling her kids to one activity or another, but in her free time she likes to relax with a good book or by baking.