Woodside School District

Hello, my name is Amar (Ummer). I am delighted to join the Woodside School District as a Paraeducator III.

Originally of Indian heritage, I was born in San Francisco, lived in Berkeley for 18 years, and have been on the Peninsula for the past five years. I have come to appreciate the kindness and sense of community that Woodside offers, and I look forward to giving back. 

I have always enjoyed working with children because I feel that they offer their most authentic selves and have a wonderful honesty in the way they see the world. My hero has always been Mr. Rogers (from Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood), and I have read his books over and over since I was a teen. I want to support children and help them become the kind of people Mr. Rogers always said they are: caring, curious, and confident.

I have volunteered with Reading Partners to help young students improve their reading skills, worked as a counselor-in-training at a day camp, and served as a foreign liaison at a medical clinic in India.

I hold a Bachelor’s Degree in the Classics and an Associate’s degree in Psychology. Growing up with high-functioning autism, I had a paraeducator who believed in me and supported me in Elementary school, and the memory of that experience taught me how powerful kindness and patience can be in helping a child feel at ease.

In my free time, I enjoy creative writing and running tabletop role-playing games, where imagination and storytelling bring people together. I am well-traveled and have had the good fortune to spend six months living in Japan, four months in China, one month in Bali, and have visited my grandparents in India every summer for twenty years. I am a keen political aficionado, love history, late-night shows, and store random factoids in my brain. 

I look forward to being a part of the WESD community.