Millennium Magazine_5th Ed

117 Millennium - A Marquis Who’s Who Magazine the University of Puget Sound in 1970. Most recently, Ms. Pacella-Sams was a tour guide in the San Francisco and Bay area beginning in 2005. She was elected to the San Francisco Tour Guide Guild’s board of trustees in 2014. Offically retiring from Oakland Public Schools in 2003 after eight years as administrator at the Harriet Tubman and Henry Longfellow Child Development Centers, she also spent a decade as a mentor director of early childhood education for the State of California. She was a principal and administrator at the Piedmont Avenue School for 10 years. Ms. Pacella-Sams began her career in 1958 as a special services teacher for Chicago Public Schools in 1958. She also taught kindergarten and primary grades. For two years, she was a social and personnel adjustment teacher in Topeka, Kansas, before working for Montessori Schools. Ms. Pacella-Sams is most proud of receiving her Montessori certification; equipped with her certificate, she assisted in the opening of numerous Montessori schools across the Midwest. She is also proud of her awards from the Oakland School District and the California Child Development Administrator Association. Ms. Pacella-Sams also held positions at the Anne Wright Seminary in Tacoma, Washington, University of Puget Sound, Franklin Pierce Public School District, Behavioral Research Laboratories, Oakland and San Francisco Unified School Districts, Sullivan Elementary and an administrator for the Department of Defense Military Dependents Schools in Asia. She is a member of the Association of California School Administrators, Montessori International and the National Black Child Development Institute. She attributes her success to her mother and teachers who greatly influenced her, as well as the nuns at the Cenacle Convent in Chicago, where she worked part-time while attending college. G rowing up in a lower-class immigrant community in Chicago, Mary Ann Pacella-Sams was the first person in her family and second woman in her community to graduate from college. Inspired by teachers who gave her special attention for learning English growing up, Ms. Pacella-Sams chose to pursue a career in teaching. She received a BA from Mundelein College in 1958 and later achieved her MEd from MARY ANN PACELLA-SAMS CORPORATE ADMINISTRATOR (RETIRED) San Francisco and Bay Area Tour Guides Walnut Creek, CA EDUCATION