Youth Staff

Tribeca Teaches - Teaching Artists
Kris Kaczor began his filmmaking career while filming the 1996 Michigan State University campus riots.  His footage was sensationalized on local and national news programs.  After becoming a tenured middle-school teacher, he attended the Motion Picture Institute of Michigan and honed his craft.  Kris has since directed, shot, edited, and scored numerous films and commercials with clients that include Partnership for Drug Free America, Pantene, Glamour Magazine, Ford, Reason Pictures, and The Sundance Channel.  As 750 Productions he freelances as a director of photography, editor, and composer in Brooklyn ; and plays in the rock band Gigantic Hand.
Michael Kugler grew up Brooklyn , NY and resettled there after returning from Washington University in St. Louis where he studied film, music and languages. Since then, he has worked with the Tribeca Film Institute in various capacities both as an administrator and teaching artist. Most recently, Michael has transitioned into sound design and is currently involved with Gigantic Studios, a post-production sound studio for independent film. This is Michael's second year working with Tribeca Teaches: Films In Motion.
 

John Randolph was born and raised in New York City , and produces web video for many outlets including his own website, illdoctrine.com. John has also worked for many years as a radio producer for WBAI 99.5 FM, where he hosts their long-running hip-hop show the Underground Railroad. John is especially proud of his third-place finish in 1985's New York City Spelling Bee.
Joaquín Sanchez Jr. is a youth multimedia educator, critical performance ethnographer/artist and activist who has worked in New York City and the Southern United States . His work examines issues of oppression and social injustice: citizenship, racism, sexism, and homophobia. He uses a community-centered method intended to bring people from any background together to produce digital and performative artifacts. These projects become documents archiving the histories of the people with whom the art is created. Currently he is working on an oral history and critical performance ethnography of transgendered and gender non-conforming Latinos in Chicago and New York City .

Bronx Prep Youth Staff
Daniel Hew is an 8th Grade Literary teacher at Bronx Prep.  He is a 2008 NYC Teach for America Corps member and is currently studying for his Masters in Adolescent English at Fordham University .  This past spring, he graduated from Rutgers University having majored in English and Psychology with a concentration in Creative Writing.  He studied several different areas of creative writing including fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and screenwriting.  His interests include writing creatively, playing the piano, collecting different types of music, and playing sports.  He lives in Hackensack , NJ and loves teaching.
Daniel Reynolds is a first generation American, born to Cuban immigrants who came to Florida after Castro came to power.  He attended a specialized high school for dance in Orlando and went to Oklahoma City University . While there, he became interested in writing, religion, and education, eventually earning degrees in all three. During college, he wrote for various newspapers and magazines and has two published books. He has seven years of teaching experience, five at Title I schools in Oklahoma and Florida , and two at a teaching university in Ukraine , where he trained teachers as part of his service in the Peace Corps.  After the Peace Corps, he returned to Ukraine to direct a documentary on the country’s skinhead movement.  Daniel is an avid traveler and his hobbies include playing guitar, martial arts and rock climbing. 
Paige Schwarz is a native New Yorker who has been teaching for 5 years.  After receiving her masters in Middle School Special and General Education from Bank Street College of Education, she knew that she needed to be teaching in a progressive, established charter school.  She found out about Bronx Prep from a friend of her mother's and has been teaching at the school for two years.  As part of the Learning Enhancement Team, Ms. Schwarz services students in grades 6-9 through small group instruction for ELA and as a mentor in the newly established mentoring program.  Ms. Schwarz is married and lives with her husband and her bulldog, Hercules, in Rockland County , NY .
Samrong So was born to Cambodian parents in a refugee camp in Thailand . He has lived in the Philippines and Ukraine , where, as a Peace Corps volunteer, he taught at the South Ukrainian State Pedagogical University. He has also taught English at schools in Guatemala .  A native speaker of Khmer, Mr. So speaks Russian and Spanish. He graduated from the UC Berkeley with a B.A. in English and he received an M.A. in sociology and education from Teachers College at Columbia University . Mr. So has taught grades K-8, served as a mentor, directed a Saturday school program, and served as a summer school principal throughout East Harlem and the South Bronx . Mr. So teaches 8th grade and is chair of the English department at Bronx Preparatory Charter School.
Marcus Swanepoel was born in Cape Town , South Africa . He attended Rhodes University where he completed a BA in English and Journalism. He enjoyed it so much that he stayed an extra year to study Business Management. He has taught in classrooms in Taiwan , South African, India and of course New York . Upon visiting and substituting at Bronx Prep he was hooked by the culture of achievement. He currently teaches 6th grade English.