After serving a year as Parent Advisor to the Board, Susan King became Board Chair in 2019, completing a four-year term and later serving two years as Secretary. As an attorney, Susan brought a strong understanding of governance and the procedural aspects of her role. During her tenure as Chair, she led the board through the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, overseeing the school’s sudden closure and the complex decision to resume in-person instruction just months later.
Susan’s younger daughter graduated in 2024 after nine years at the Peregrine school. She started at 3 years old in the Chinese immersion classroom, which blended early language learning with the Reggio Emilia approach to early childhood education. Susan recalls how the head teacher deftly adapted her curriculum to follow the interests of the children and create immersive projects that offered numerous opportunities for learning. When the students took great interest in the pill bugs they found in the yard outside, the teacher facilitated discussions between the students about this crustacean’s behavior, food requirements, and preferred habitat, allowing children to share their own ideas first. Blending science with art, the students concluded their exploration by drawing the pill bugs they had studied.
Around the same time, Susan moved her older daughter—who had completed kindergarten and first grade at a local Davis public school—to Peregrine, seeking a more engaging learning environment. Having spent part of her own childhood in South Korea, where students were expected to sit quietly as teachers lectured, Susan wanted her daughters to experience a more collaborative and creative approach to education.
Outside of her professional commitments, Susan devotes much of her time to her two children. She especially enjoys taking them to musical theater performances and various events at the Mondavi Center and theaters in Sacramento.