Although Ms. Charray Helton, known as Ms. Charray to her students, is the newest addition to the Upper School Performing Arts Department, she is not a stranger to the school. Ms. Charray grew up in Atlanta and had friends who attended the Academy. Throughout grade school, she danced professionally at the Ballethnic Academy of Dance in East Point. Later, after earning a Bachelor’s degree in dance from Dominican University. It was through another Woodward connection, Lower School dance teacher Dawn Axum that learned about and was recommended for the teaching position. As Ms. Charray is Ms. Jenny Gould’s associate dance teacher, they toggle back and forth teaching classes. Ms. Charray has years of experience teaching dance in other settings, and this is her first time teaching at a high school.
“This is my first time [teaching] at a school, like an academic school,” Ms. Charray said. “One of my biggest goals is to just be able to create a space with Ms. Gould that students feel…comfortable coming to us beyond the dance room.”
Ms. Charray is looking forward to venturing outside the Dance Barn and exploring what else Woodward has to offer. She also wants to advocate for the Dance Ensemble to get them more seen on campus. In class, Ms. Charray strives to be a patient and compassionate teacher. She especially wants to give her students the patience and grace that they don’t give themselves. Ms. Charray explained that it’s easy for young dancers to get in their heads when they are looking at themselves in the mirror all day, so she aims to empower her students to succeed instead of holding them back through criticism. Her favorite style to teach is contemporary ballet.
“I think it’s so beautiful when students can find that little inkling in themselves that expresses the things that they’re unable to speak about, that they may not be able to formulate into words,” Ms. Charray said.
Dance students can expect to do a lot of improv and conditioning in dance class in addition to practice. The easiest way to get on Ms. Charray’s good side is by simply showing up and being respectful. The Upper School Young Choreographer’s showcase is on Wednesday, Nov. 19 and Thursday, Nov. 20, 2025. While Ms. Charray doesn’t want to reveal the theme too early, she did provide one word that describes the show.
“Passion,” Ms. Charray said.
Dr. Kenyon-Mafu is a first year Woodward staff member and is already in love with how the Woodward community is treating her. Dr. Kenyon-Mafu is originally from Birmingham, England, and is very proud of her Jamaican origin. She taught math in England for 7 years, but she had a desire to teach internationally, so she later decided that America was the place for her–that was over two decades ago, and she hasn’t left since! After coming to the U.S, she taught for the British School of Washington for two years before moving to Atlanta. Dr. Kenyon-Mafu taught at many different schools around the Metro Atlanta area, spending a few years at Holy Spirit Prep, Pine Crest Academy and The Lovett School. While Dr. Kenyon-Mafu may be a math fanatic today, it hasn’t always been that way.
“I hated math [in school],” Dr. Kenyon-Mafu said. “I absolutely hated it, and I think it was because of the way it was taught in a very dry, antiseptic, impersonal way, so just completely irrelevant. And so although I was in the honors classes, I was a bit of a rebel… I did as little work as possible.”
While Dr. Kenyon-Mafu has taught the wide range of math subjects there are to offer, this year she is teaching Geometry EP and Pre-Calculus EP. She wants to push her students to be the best students they can be through practice and problem-solving, while giving difficult or complicated problems to strengthen their knowledge in math.
“I particularly like teaching or demystifying complicated things,” Dr. Kenyon-Mafu said. “I thought I would enjoy teaching English, but it was actually the math… It’s not that hard actually. It’s really easy. And so that’s how I got into, I think, …teaching.”
During her career as an educator, Dr. Kenyon-Mafu has focused on teaching students of every age and every ability more advanced lessons. She has mostly taught 11th and 12th grade, but she has now expanded to teach kids through all grades of the Upper School. Before coming to Woodward, she taught ninth grade Algebra, AP Calculus, AP Statistics and AP Pre- Calculus. Geometry is the newest subject for her, but it is an amazing opportunity to use the wide range of her experience and doctoral knowledge to help nurture her students in more ways than one.
“I firmly believe, if you don’t confront it [any challenging thing], you can’t conquer it,” Dr. Kenyon-Mafu said. “So I think… there’s so many life lessons about teaching on tough subjects.”
Since being at Woodward, Dr. Kenyon-Mafu has been in awe of how warm and welcoming the Woodward community has been to her. She looks forward to coming to work and embraces the gifts and resources that Woodward has already given her.
“I’ve been given an ambassador, a mentor, yeah?” Dr. Kenyon-Mafu said. “And I just feel that… it definitely feels like there’s a legacy. I love the diversity of Woodward… I love my advisory. Everybody’s just been really considerate, as well as very professional.”
Dr. Kenyon-Mafu is beyond grateful to be in this community and is dedicated to having an impact on the students’ lives through the way she teaches and her motivating energy.
“I really want to… have a love for what I do and for the people that I work with and the students that I serve,” Dr. Kenyon-Mafu said. “I really want to see the person and not just like the grade, right? I think this is a place where that’s fostered.”
Dr. Gabriel Lovatt is a new English teacher for this school year. While Dr. Lovatt is new to Atlanta, she’s not new to Georgia. She previously worked at Athens Academy as English faculty and English chair for nine years. Before that, she worked at the Georgia Institute of Technology (GA Tech) as well as the University of Georgia. However, her move from Athens to Atlanta wasn’t just out of the blue.
“I wanted to move to Atlanta, because my partner works for Coca Cola,” Dr. Lovatt said. “We were tired of commuting, so I started looking for jobs, and I had a very specific idea of where I wanted to be because I loved where I was, and so I wasn’t willing to just take anything.”
Woodward Academy first made an appearance to Dr. Lovatt through a former student.
“I’d actually had a student in Georgia Tech who was one of the most impressive students I ever met,” Dr. Lovatt said. “I said, ‘where did you go to high school,’ he said ‘Woodward,’ And I didn’t know it then because I was new to Atlanta, but it made an impression on me.”
Dr. Lovatt is passionate about language and literature as a gateway to understanding history and culture. The uses of language lie on a broad range: reading stories for pleasure, understanding the world from the past to the present and exploring intellectual developments. Her goal for this year is to learn the way of Woodward students and support them in the ways they need.
“I think also [I] just really enjoy the reality of the work, which for an independent, prestigious independent school, it’s probably one of the places that has the most people from different backgrounds, different cultures that I’ve ever encountered,” Dr. Lovatt said. “And I think many people say this, so, like, what a delight, what a privilege to be able to be in a place that gives this kind of elite education, that doesn’t close the doors to many people.”
Mr. Travis Platek is one of two new math teachers in the Upper School this year. Mr. Platek has been teaching math for 12 years, teaching every grade level from 2nd to 12th. He has a Bachelor’s degree in English from Emory University and a Master’s degree in Math from Georgia State University. Some may think a degree in English is extremely random for a math teacher to have, but Mr. Platek notices lots of overlap among the two fields.
“You’re given information, you analyze it, you problem solve,” Mr. Platek said. “And I like [that] in math, you can know for sure if your answer is right or wrong.”
Prior to the 2025-2026 school year, Mr. Platek taught math at Midtown International School, also known as MIS, for 10 years. Before his time at MIS, he taught elementary school math at an IB school in Finland. Mr. Platek found his way to Woodward as he was ready for a change from the extremely small class sizes at MIS (the entire school body is under 200 students). He’s also used to being one of one or two math teachers at a school, so to have a math department that is so big makes him feel extremely welcome at Woodward. His favorite math subject to teach is Algebra II.
“I like, actually, Algebra II a lot because…you take all the functions you learned in Algebra I, and now we actually can apply them by graphing and word problems and really do some good problem-solving,” Mr. Platek said.
Mr. Platek has two goals for his first year teaching at Woodward: one, to survive, and, two, to find his flow at the school. He’s excited to learn from the wisdom of the veteran teachers and feels honored to be working alongside teachers who have been working at Woodward for so long. Mr. Platek has experience coaching tennis and competitive math teams, and he’s open to helping out with those programs. In class, it’s not hard to be on Mr. Platek’s good side: he takes an innocent until proven guilty approach. All his students start on his good side, but tardiness, messiness and slacking will move someone over to his bad side. Being a diehard Atlanta Falcons’ Fan, there is one non-negotiable no-no to being in his class. He wants people to stop acting like the 2009 Superbowl just happened.
“If a student comes in with a New Orleans Saints jersey, the door is locked,” Mr. Platek said.
Ms. Ashley Tarver is one of two teachers to join the Upper School Social Studies department this year. Ms. Tarver, who grew up in College Park, first heard about Woodward in her childhood, describing it as “a staple in the community.” Before coming to Woodward, she worked in Atlanta Public Schools for 16 years. Her teaching style revolves around student-led and project-based learning with an emphasis on developing the soft skills she sees as important for students to have before they go off to college: debate, writing and public speaking.
“I want kids to feel empowered, to be comfortable with being in control of their own learning,” Ms. Tarver said.
Ms. Tarver’s approach is shaped by her time in APS, which, as the place she started her teaching career, “will always have a special place in [her] heart.”
“I think it prepared me to deal with any situation in the classroom,” Ms. Tarver said.
Still, she appreciates her new environment. One of the differences she noticed between Woodward and her previous school was that Woodward was much more flexible in its schedule. For example, she likes the multiple tutorial blocks available for students. She also stated that she liked how there were different class types–like AP and EP–so that students could work at their own pace. Another difference she noticed was the class size.
“My largest class size is 15 students,” Ms. Tarver said. “It was not uncommon in public [schools] to have about 34 in a class, right? Which makes it impossible to really build relationships with your kids and to ensure that you’re meeting all of their needs. So I like the model here.”
All these pluses seem to add up to one thing: Ms. Tarver’s excited to spend her next few years here.
“I think this is where I foresee myself finishing my teaching career,” Ms. Tarver said.
