5th-6th Faculty
Claire Roboski
5th & 6th Math Teacher, She / her
Claire Roboski is a part-time instructor with a multidisciplinary background in education, psychology, holistic coaching, Ayurveda, and yoga. Claire has over 12 years’ experience facilitating nonviolent conflict resolution, tutoring, and teaching (both children and and adults), in both classroom and studio settings alike. She is also a certified yoga instructor, with a focus on alleviating trauma and anxiety. She joined Odyssey’s middle school faculty in the winter of 2023 to teach 5th and 6th grade.
Kalyan Volpe
Founding Teacher, Middle Grades Math Teacher & Program Director
he/him
Kalyan is one of Odyssey’s founding teachers, and he first came to teaching after a series of adventures, including traveling and living in Japan and considering monkhood in Nicaragua. When he visited a Long Island alternative elementary school, he was so enraptured by their joy and excitement that his life goals shifted from the monkhood to working in alternative education. His passion is to help children discover and honor their inherent brilliant selves and use those gifts to add to a vibrant community.
Kalyan achieved a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Connecticut and an M.A. in Education from Goddard College in Vermont, where his master’s thesis focused on the design of holistic elementary schools. After working as a lead teacher in a school in Fukuoka, Japan, and head teacher as PSOLI in Merrick New York, Kalyan taught at Odyssey for six years before taking a hiatus to explore other career opportunities. He rejoined Odyssey Middle School in 2016.
In Kalyan’s classes students focus on going deeply into subjects and ideas. Critical and creative thinking is encouraged and developed. Students are given ample opportunity to shine in the areas where they are strong and to be supported and grow in those areas where they need help. Key components of Kalyan’s classes include mutual respect, fun, participation, and dialogue. He encourages students to follow through with their visions, develop their own voice, and encounter the diversity of humanity.
Amy Glenn
Fifth and Sixth Grade Language Arts and Social Studies Teacher
she/her
Amy Wright Glenn and her family relocated from Florida to North Carolina in the fall of 2021. She is excited to begin a new chapter of teaching at Odyssey School! Amy earned her MA from Teachers College, Columbia University. She taught high school for eleven years at The Lawrenceville School in New Jersey earning the Dunbar Abston Jr. Chair for Teaching Excellence. Prior to teaching high school, Amy enjoyed the creative, vibrant, fun loving, and warm hearted company of sixth graders while teaching at Wellspring School in Providence, Rhode Island.
Amy is a birth and death doula, hospital chaplain, Kripalu Yoga teacher, and founder of the Institute for the Study of Birth, Breath, and Death wherein she trains professionals in the work of holding space for life transitions with a focus on perinatal loss and grief work. From 2015 to 2020, Amy served as an active contributor to PhillyVoice writing on topics relating to birth, death, parenting, and spirituality. Amy is the author of Birth, Breath, and Death: Meditations on Motherhood, Chaplaincy, and Life as a Doula and Holding Space: On Loving, Dying, and Letting Go. Recently, Amy contributed a chapter to a book focusing on self-care for educators in independent schools soon to be published through the Center of Spiritual and Ethical Education (CSEE).
Amy is the mother of an active and creative 10-year-old and together they love to play Legos, rock climb, hike, explore, read, and adventure with the family Golden Retriever named Scout. Amy finds her home in the Unitarian Universalist and yogic traditions and has studied in India, Iran, Israel/Palestine, Turkey, Germany, Guatemala, Mexico, and Canada. Amy’s travels, along with her study of the world’s wisdom traditions, inspire the crafting of an integrated Social Studies/ELA curriculum centered upon the Integral Model of education. Amy loves to garden, meditate, study, travel, dance, and color!
