Jessie Francese teaches 8th grade humanities and expedition. She is certified and has her National Boards certification in middle school language arts. She has her BA from Elon University in English Education, where she was a North Carolina Teaching Fellow in the class of '03. She earned her MAEd in English Education from Western Carolina, while living in Asheville, NC from 2003-2008. She and her husband, Brent, moved back to Raleigh in 2008. She taught for 8 years at Oberlin Middle School and has been at Exploris since 2016. She feels like she's landed her dream job because the values at Exploris align with her own personal values! Jessie has enjoyed learning more science while teaching at Exploris and participated in the NC Museum of Natural Science Educator of Excellence Institute in 2018 with a trip to New England. Jessie enjoys reading, running, and backpacking. She has twin boys, Vin and Whit, and a daughter, Ada.
