Melissa Ficarra

Mrs. Ficarra began at GPS as a parent in 2011 and immediately connected with The Golden Pond Way teaching philosophy and exceptional staff. Her love of GPS grew as did her two girls who both attended for many years. Even at 10 years old her daughter spoke about how much she loved her time at GPS and misses it! This encouraged Mrs. Ficarra to join our staff in 2016, first as a substitute and now as a Lead Preschool Teacher.

Mrs. Ficarra has always loved teaching! During college, she worked with Special Education elementary classrooms, with a school aged children summer school program for BOCES (Board of Cooperative Educational Services) and a Special Education school in Buffalo, NY. After college, Melissa taught in 7th, 8th and 9th grades in New York for a year. Her next move was to Northern Virginia in 1999 where she taught 9th, 10th and 12th grades for 9 years in Fairfax County in inclusion classrooms. She left the teaching world to stay home with her children and feels right at home now in a GPS classroom.

“I felt the warmth and caring nature of Golden Pond and loved to see the excitement in my children’s eyes when they would describe their school day. I want to bring that joy to my students!“