Welcome to the High School at MIS!
High School mural designed by student Gabriella Schakett (Class of '24).
A Message From our Principal:Thank you for stopping by! At MIS, high school students are given the opportunity to lean in to their intellectual curiosity, develop their leadership and professional skills, and cultivate their social and intellectual independence to succeed in college, the workplace, and beyond. MIS bases its curriculum design, instructional strategies, travel opportunities, and college preparedness activities on the ever-growing body of research in giftedness and the learning sciences. The MIS High School experience bridges a deep understanding of gifted students and their need for limitless learning opportunities with the constraints and limits of college preparedness, university admissions, and adulthood.
Alongside our academic rigor, it is equally important for us to ensure that students' mental and emotional wellbeing is cared for, supported, and encouraged to bloom. At MIS, we reject the negative assumptions that see teenagers as being inherently angsty, apathetic, or "difficult." Developmentally speaking, high school students experience a time of incredible change, growing potential, limitless capacity, and an ardent desire for justice. And that is how our incredible faculty view and approach our students -- as the curious, knowledge-seeking, justice-fighting powerhouses that all teenagers have the inherent capacity to be. |
High School Admin
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With all of the recent changes and challenges the world has faced since 2020, it's more important than ever that students and families are supported with clear accountability characterized by compassion, care, and understanding. Our small class sizes - limited to a maximum of 12 students per class - gives our teachers the opportunity to form deeper connections with students, as well as the ability to provide individualized attention, accommodation, and care.
There is a poster that hangs in my office that reads "where there is love, nothing is too much trouble, and there is always time." It serves as a constant reminder of the mindset that guides our decisions, our conversations with parents, guardians, staff, and students, as well as the quality we hope to instill in every student that experiences our High School during their life-long educational journey.
Please take some time to explore our website, and feel free to reach out with any High School-specific questions you may have.
I hope to meet you soon,
Dr. Munib Rezaie
High School Principal
mrezaie@misatl.org
There is a poster that hangs in my office that reads "where there is love, nothing is too much trouble, and there is always time." It serves as a constant reminder of the mindset that guides our decisions, our conversations with parents, guardians, staff, and students, as well as the quality we hope to instill in every student that experiences our High School during their life-long educational journey.
Please take some time to explore our website, and feel free to reach out with any High School-specific questions you may have.
I hope to meet you soon,
Dr. Munib Rezaie
High School Principal
mrezaie@misatl.org
General Information
2022-2023 High School Handbook
Please click here to view the 2022-2023 High School Student and Parent Handbook. The handbook includes more details regarding day-to-day school policies, procedures, and expectations.
Please click here to view the 2022-2023 High School Student and Parent Handbook. The handbook includes more details regarding day-to-day school policies, procedures, and expectations.
2022-2023 High School Hours and Class Schedule
High School classes run from 9:00am to 3:55pm, Monday through Friday, with a lunch block running from 12:00pm to 12:55pm. Provided they obtain parental permission, students in grades 11 and 12 are allowed to leave campus for lunch during the school day.
Students can expect to be enrolled in standard or Honors-level classes in English, Math, Science, Social Studies, and World Language - as well as two electives - per semester. You can find a snapshot of our weekly schedule below:
High School classes run from 9:00am to 3:55pm, Monday through Friday, with a lunch block running from 12:00pm to 12:55pm. Provided they obtain parental permission, students in grades 11 and 12 are allowed to leave campus for lunch during the school day.
Students can expect to be enrolled in standard or Honors-level classes in English, Math, Science, Social Studies, and World Language - as well as two electives - per semester. You can find a snapshot of our weekly schedule below:
High School Faculty
Angela Abdelnur Faculty |
Amy Cutts
Math Team Lead (Grades K-6) Amy is thrilled to be joining the MIS family this year to teach math to 5th and 6th grade learners! Amy believes that learners are most likely to take risks and try new things in an environment where they feel comfortable and accepted, and cultivates a classroom environment values kindness and respect above all else. Amy is a native Georgian and attended Auburn University where she was on the Dean’s List and received her Bachelor of Science in Elementary Education. Over the past ten years she has taught a diverse group of learners, including two summers spent in Uganda, and eight years teaching fifth and sixth graders. She has enjoyed opportunities to continue her learning by becoming a Google Certified Educator, a Project Lead the Way trainer (a STEM based curriculum), and learning to build and program robots using Vex IQ kits and RobotC programming software. In her spare time, Amy enjoys being outdoors, spending time with her two dogs, reading, crocheting, and traveling just about anywhere. |
Lisa Hammett
Science Team Lead Lisa is passionate about teaching students scientific literacy within the context of real-world issues. This will be Lisa’s sixth year as a member of the MIS science team, having joined the faculty in the school’s first year. Over the last six years, she has had the privilege to teach all ages K-10. She has previously taught biology, genetics, and microbiology, and will teach high school chemistry this year. Lisa is native of Charlotte, NC, but grew up in the Atlanta area and graduated with a B.S. in Microbiology from Auburn University. After working for one year at the Auburn Vet School, she completed an M.S. in Microbiology at Auburn in 1998. She worked at a small biotech company in Huntsville, AL for two years until 2000, when she then went to work in a forensic biology lab. Lisa and her husband moved to Maryland in 2002 to work at The National Institutes of Health. She has also held adjunct faculty roles at three community colleges where she taught biology and microbiology. Lisa returned to Atlanta in 2005 with her family. When she is not at school, she enjoys reading science fiction, playing her flute in a quintet group, working out, and traveling internationally as much as possible. |
Joseph was born in Macau and spent his early years in Shanghai. He began his formal Mandarin studies after graduating from high school and spending a year in Guangzhou, China teaching English in local middle schools and taking Chinese classes. He then spent one year studying Education at the University of Hong Kong, followed by three additional years at UNC Chapel Hill, where he double majored in Chinese and Linguistics with a minor in Education. After earning his bachelor’s degree, Joseph then pursued a master’s degree in International Relations at Nankai University in Tianjin, China (with all coursework in Chinese). Most recently, Joseph worked as a consultant at a public affairs firm in Beijing, advising multinational companies on how to best operate in the Chinese market. This is Joseph’s first year at MIS, and he is looking forward to using second language learning approaches that energize students and give them as many opportunities to use Chinese in practical scenarios as possible. He is excited to create an immersive and hands-on Chinese environment, and to share the many tips and tricks he picked up along his own Chinese learning path. "三人行，必有我师焉；择其善者而从之，其不善者而改之 -- 孔子 “Walking among three people, I find my teacher among them. I choose that which is good in them and follow it, and that which is bad and change it.” ― Confucius |
Cesar “Ephraim” Padilla is a retired Army Colonel with 30 years of service that included many places in Latin America and the Middle East. He was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico and grew up in several places in the United States and Latin America due to his father’s career as a mid-level manager for the Federal Aviation Administration. His native language is Spanish but learned English by attending schools in Puerto Rico, the United States and the Panama Canal Zone. Ephraim earned a Bachelors of Science Degree in Psychology from Georgia State University. He also holds two masters degrees. A Master of Arts Degree in International Land Warfare (Military History) from the American Public University and a Masters of Strategic Studies from the United States Army War College. Ephraim is a self-taught linguist who has worked with many cultures and has been exposed to many languages throughout his military career. He taught Spanish and other courses in the Army and learned Hebrew and Brazilian Portuguese on his own. He enjoys reading science fiction and playing board games with his family. |
Richard Pettypiece
Faculty Born in Caracas, Venezuela, and raised in small-town Ontario, Canada, Richard has volunteered and taught at international schools on three different continents—MIS marks his fourth. After high school, he volunteered for a year at an international boarding school in the Czech Republic, cementing his desire to teach in international contexts. He studied for two years at Queen’s University in Canada and three at the University of Toronto, double-majoring in English and French Literatures and earning a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Education. Upon graduation he worked as an educational consultant in Beijing for two years and then spent five years in Tianjin, China, where he worked as a Humanities and English teacher in an international secondary school. It was there that he met his future wife—also a teacher—and where their two children were born. In 2018, the young family moved to Kampala, Uganda, where Richard worked as an English Language Arts teacher for three years. In both Uganda and China, he has centered his professional learning on effectively seizing the opportunities latent only in the dynamism of middle school classrooms. He is currently working towards a Master of Social Science degree virtually through the University of Glasgow, specializing in education and student voice. In his spare time, Richard enjoys cooking, hiking, playing board games, and reading a good book. |
Travis is very excited to be starting his fourth year teaching math at MIS. Before joining the team at MIS, Travis was a teacher at the International School of Helsinki, in Finland, where he learned about Finnish culture, explored Europe, and taught a diverse group of students from all of the world. Travis found working in an international environment to be extremely fulfilling and an ideal education setting where students are encouraged to become empowered, global citizens. These are just a few factors that make MIS such a great place! Before moving to Finland, he received his Master’s of Arts in Teaching Mathematics from Georgia State University after earning his Bachelor’s degree in English Language and Literature from Emory University. Travis loves incorporating liberal arts into his math lessons, and believes that math can be found all around us. In his free time Travis enjoys playing tennis, cooking, and cheering on the Atlanta Falcons. |
Taylor Rowley
Faculty Taylor holds an undergraduate degree in German Language and Culture with a concentration in Business from Kennesaw State University. She is an active member of the Delta Phi Alpha National German Honor Society, and has spent two summer semesters studying abroad, attending local German courses in Münster, Germany. Aside from her passion for language, Taylor is also an experienced musician, and a local piano teacher. Joining the MIS faculty in Spring 2020, she is excited to engage and guide her students through their own cultural journey and language growth. "And now we welcome a new year, full of things that have never been" - Rainer Maria Rilke |
Christine loves to read, but more importantly, Christine loves discussing and exchanging themes and ideas which emanate from stories with adolescents. Christine has a Bachelor of Arts in English and Educational Studies from Emory University and furthered her pedagogy by obtaining a Masters of Arts in Teaching for Secondary English Education at the University of Georgia. Regardless of time or culture, she believes that the abundant themes and topics found in literature or novels do not remain on the page, but rather transcend into our environment, minds, and hearts challenging us to question or enhance our values in order to become better people in various aspects of our lives. In her classroom, Christine seeks to help students use reading and writing as a tool to help them acquire, express, and challenge their opinions according to their unique abilities about experiences that occur within their personal lives and the world. Christine does not have one “particular” favorite book, but some novels that have inspired Christine are the Bible; The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho; Matilda by Roald Dahl; Animal Farm by George Orwell; and many more! In her personal time, Christine enjoys the following activities which include but are not limited to: reading, running, volunteering, dining out at delicious, local restaurants, researching recipes for baked goods and nutritious foods; wandering through Publix, Trader Joe’s, or Kroger for groceries; watching movies; attending local street festivals;and browsing at quirky items and smelling aromatic candles at T.J. Maxx or Marshalls. |
Ben Szymanski
Physical Education Team Lead Ben is new to MIS this year and brings 13 years of physical education experience. He has a Bachelor’s degree in physical education and health, and is a certified fitness instructor for the R.I.P.P.E.D and Body Pump programs. He has worked with students in grades kindergarten through high school and believes that physical education is an essential part of a child’s education. With a focus on lessons that involve sportsmanship, teamwork, friendly competition, and risk taking, Ben’s goal is to help students grow socially while developing a positive self-image. He also enjoys integrating math, science, reading and other core subjects into his lessons. “By building a positive relationship with my students I hope that each student will be intrinsically motivated to eat healthy and exercise for the rest of their lives.” When Ben is not teaching or working out he enjoys kayaking and staying active with his family. |
