Current Teachers
Lorraine Bridges
Lorraine Bridges has been a teacher in the LCPS district for 14 years. She currently teaches Biology, Chemistry in the Community, and Anatomy and Physiology at Centennial High School. Additionally, she is also a MESA advisor (Math, Engineering, Science, Achievement) and has been for the past 12 years.
Bryan Gabitzsch
Bryan Gabitzsch earned a B.S. in Biology with a minor in Biochemistry from NMSU in 1997. He also earned an M.A. in Curriculum and Instruction from NMSU in 2002. Bryan has taught for Las Cruces Public Schools for 14 years. He currently teaches Biology, Chemistry, and Zoology at Centennial High School.
Kathleen Guitar
Kathleen Guitar is a 6th grade Science and Language Arts teacher at Vista Middle School. She has been teaching for 18 years and continues to love working with wonderful students in our ever-changing world. She graduated from NMSU with a Bachelors of Science in 1995 and graduated from NMSU with her Master’s degree in 2005. Some of the programs she has enjoyed working with are MESA, Battle of the Books, After-School Enrichment, Volleyball, and Girl Scouts. She is a sports enthusiast, addicted to playing soccer, basketball, volleyball, and wallyball every week.
Melody Hagaman
Melody Hagaman received her BS in Secondary Education: Science from NMSU. She has been teaching for five years and has recently piloted Centennial High School’s first computer science program, which has grown to over 160 students. Ms. Hagaman teaches computer science programming, AP computer science, and physics. She also works with the Santa Fe Institute’s Project GUTS program to train middle school science teachers around the country to use computational modeling in their classrooms.
Jeri McDowell
Jeri McDowell earned her B.A. in Marketing and Management from New Mexico State University in 1982 and her M.A. in Curriculum and Instruction in 1996. She currently teaches Forensic Science and Sports Medicine at Mayfield High School. She has also taught the NMSU Bioinformatics Summer Program lab sessions in 2009 and 2010.
Tammy Miller-Dwake
Tammy Miller-Dwake has been teaching in the Las Cruces area for over 9 years. She has spent the last 4 years teaching science at the Early College High School. She received her B.S. in Secondary Education in 2004 and her M.A. in Science Teaching in 2010 from New Mexico State University.
Tammy has been involved with many student clubs- travel club, Science Olympiad, MESA, Project GUTS, After-School Program, and First Robotics. When she is not working with her students Tammy loves to spend time with her family cooking, hiking, and traveling.
Beth Rewalt
Beth Rewalt earned her B.S. in Human Nutrition and Food Science from New Mexico State University in 1995 and her M.A. in Curriculum and Instruction in 1999. She currently teaches Biology at Centennial High School. She has also taught the NMSU Bioinformatics Summer Program lab sessions in 2009 and 2010.
Christin Slaughter
Before moving to Las Cruces, NM, Christin completed her B.S. at California State University, Northridge and her M.S. at University of North Carolina, Wilmington. She began her Ph.D. in the Biology Department at NMSU and also took a position with the NMSU-HHMI G9-12 Outreach Programs, designing and facilitating Molecular Genetics curriculum and labs in High School classrooms, statewide. Christin began teaching at Arrowhead Park Early College High School in the summer of 2014 and is integrating Computational Thinking Computer Science/Computational thinking in her Chemistry course (F’14) and Earth Science course (S’14).
Tim Staley
Tim Staley earned his B.S. in Marketing from The University of Alabama in 1997, and his M.F.A. in Poetry from New Mexico State University in 2004. He currently teaches English at Onate High School. He has been teaching English in Southern New Mexico for 14 years.
View our Past Teachers page here.