Andrea Smith
Digital Arts Faculty, Visual Arts Chair

Andrea Smith is a Kansas native who fell in love with California when she moved here eight years ago. She is passionate about art, culture, and communication, and the ways they divinely work together to promote community and understanding between people and cultures.

After attending a small, Christian high school, Andrea went on to study Art Education and Spanish at Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma. While there, she spent three summers abroad with the missions program and one summer studying in Spain. These experiences planted the seed for her desire to further study Spanish and Hispanic cultures as well as a desire for adventuring in far-off places.

After graduation, she spent a year in El Salvador teaching English and learning Spanish and then spent two years in the Kansas City public school system teaching English Language Learners from around the world.

In 2012, she relocated to California where she taught Digital Arts, Spanish 2 and Drawing & Painting for six years at Ontario Christian High School. At OC she developed new curriculum and grading practices for each of her classes. During that time she also earned an M.S. in Secondary Education from Cal State Fullerton, researching project-based curriculum development and grading rubrics. Experiences such as leading students to Nicaragua for missions, assistant coaching cross country and track, and leading the yearbook staff are where she realized the importance of building mentoring relationships with students both in and out of the classroom.

Ms. Smith joined Pacifica Christian last semester as a long-term substitute teaching Digital Arts 1. She is excited to continue at Pacifica, teaching all of the Digital Arts classes as well as one section of Spanish 1. She believes that God has gifted all students with the capacity to be inspired and to create, and desires to encourage and guide each of them in their process of thinking and living well.

Besides teaching, Ms. Smith is an avid runner, hiker, and general lover of nature. She will participate in any outdoor activity (no matter how good or bad she is at it). She also enjoys reading, painting, cooking, traveling, and trivia nights with friends.