Antonella Hartel

Antonella was born and raised in Rome, where she completed her Classical Studies before moving to Los Angeles in 1993. There, she met and married her husband and raised her family. She earned both her B.A. and M.A. in Child Development from Cal State Los Angeles, with her graduate studies focusing on second language acquisition. For more than 20 years, Antonella has been teaching Italian to both children and adults. She taught preschool through 4th grade in the Los Angeles Unified School District and, for the past 17 years, has been with the Glendale Unified School District, where she is a teacher in their K-6 Italian Immersion program. In 2018–2019, Antonella was selected by the California Department of Education to serve on the committee that developed the framework for teaching world languages in California public schools. Passionate about education, language, and culture, she loves connecting with people, learning about their backgrounds, and sharing her own Italian heritage.