Our Staff

Ms. Wendelberger joined the Ignite Family in 2022. She has her B.S. in Behavioral Sciences with a minor in Sociology from Concordia University-Irvine. Additionally, she has her M.Ed. in Special Education from Grand Canyon University. 

Ms. Wendelberger’s teaching experience started when she began creating and instructing a music class in Arizona as a paraprofessional. She has since worked with students from kindergarten through adulthood with a variety of learning barriers. 

Ms. Wendelberger is passionate about traveling the world, singing, and acting. During her free time, she also enjoys going to the river with her pup River. An interesting fact about Ms. Wendelberger is that she has traveled to 20 different countries. 

Dori received her bachelor’s degree of science from Drexel University in 1992 and her master’s degree in social work from Temple University in 1997. Dori has had extensive experience serving children and their families in the New York City foster care system and at Green Chimneys Therapeutic Day School in Brewster, New York. As a licensed clinical social worker, Dori provided social skills training, coping strategies and anger management tools to children and adolescents in both individual and group settings. Dori joined us in August of 2011 and is now fulfilling her dream of teaching.

In her free time, Dori enjoys activities with her family, traveling, creating pottery, practicing yoga and training for the triathlon. In Dori’s athletic training group, she is referred to as the “billy goat” because she prefers cycling uphill. This meshes well with her life philosophy: the challenge of the uphill is more exciting than the ease of the downhill. (We’re impressed; we’ll toss you a water bottle on our way down.)

Anita received her bachelor’s degree in psychology with minors in organizational sociology and German from UC Davis in California. She also holds a master’s degree in applied psychology, which she obtained from Golden Gate University in San Francisco, California. Anita has over thirteen years of early childhood development experience, most recently as a teaching assistant for the Ballantyne Preschool of the Arts in Charlotte, North Carolina.

In her free time Anita enjoys reading, traveling, meditating…, which often turns into napping, and daily attempts to master the mindless yet habit-forming game “Candy Crush.”  She hopes to reach the last level within this century. (We wish you luck with that.)

Maya, who joined the Ignite Achievement family in 2013, provides unique music and movement classes each week. She is also delighted to be on staff as a teaching assistant. Originally from New York, Maya was raised with a love for music. In fact, at just sixteen months of age, she named her first doll “Do-Re.”

Maya studied violin and cello and earned her bachelor’s degree at the University of Iowa, where she majored in music education and psychology. She moved to North Carolina and taught orchestra in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School System, and while raising her three daughters, became licensed as a Kindermusik instructor, joyfully teaching classes for many years.

While homeschooling her three daughters, Maya provided private violin and cello instruction and taught exploratory music classes at several preschool programs. She also began leading the Hand in Hand Orchestra, an afterschool program offered through The Vine UMC. Throughout her career, Maya has sought ways to make musical experiences intergenerational and has involved her students at many senior and memory care facilities. She now works with several senior clients privately and never underestimates the mindful and emotional connections that music generates in people from birth to 100 years young.

As a life-long learner, Maya is always motivated by her family, her students and even her rambunctious trio of “American Hybrid” rescue dogs. She enjoys solving ridiculously challenging sudoku puzzles, reading about nutrition and dog training, learning German, and going on family hiking, camping and kayaking expeditions.