Kami Cotler serves as the founding Principal of Environmental Charter Middle School. Born and raised in Los Angeles, Ms. Cotler attended the University of California at Berkeley, where she graduated with a degree in Social Sciences and then received her teaching credential. Ms. Cotler began her teaching career in a small, rural district near Charlottesville, Virginia where she taught in ALPHA, an interdisciplinary, alternative program for at-risk high school students. When she returned to California, she took a position as ninth grade team leader at Environmental Charter High School in Lawndale, California. While exploring education options for her own children, Ms. Cotler learned about Ocean Charter School and worked on various committees in the year before the school’s opening. In August 2004, she was selected as founding co-director at the Ocean Charter School. After serving as co-director for three years, Ms. Cotler began an educational consulting business, working with developing charters and homeschooling families. Her experiences outside education include running a boutique travel company, an internship at IBM, managing a café in San Francisco, and, as a child, acting on the television series “The Waltons”. She has been a member of the Board of the American Montessori Society, the Ocean Charter School board of trustees, and the Goethe International Charter School board of trustees. She made famous the role of Elizabeth on The Walton’s television show.
