This article originally appeared in the Summer 2025 issue of the Gaynor Gazette.
Beginning her career at Gaynor in 2011, Erika Bentsen was a Blue Cluster teacher for many years before making the switch to the Admissions department as Admissions Associate and Educational Evaluator in the 2024-25 school year. While to some that might seem like a big difference, to Erika it’s the best place she can be to showcase just how special Gaynor teachers are.
For our latest installment of “Five Questions With,” we sat down with Erika to learn more about her time at Gaynor, her love of community service, and how her experience as a teacher impacts her work in her new role.
What was your journey into teaching, and how did you find yourself at Gaynor?
This is my 14th year at Gaynor. I’ve never worked anywhere else. What brought me to teaching is… I can remember in my 5th grade yearbook, when they asked, what do you want to be when you grow up? I wrote teacher. So I followed in my 5th grade thought process! I went to NYU for undergrad and I studied education and my final student teaching placement was at Gaynor. The next year when I was an assistant teacher I taught the Yellow Cluster, and then an opportunity came about the following year to be a Blue Cluster head teacher and I said yes.
Do you have a favorite student story?
My favorite isn’t about one student. The moments that I remember the most or that stood out to me as a Blue Cluster teacher were any times when we could bring Blue Cluster students to do community service
Erika with her husband and son.
outside of the school. We did a lot of activities outside the school like Meals on Wheels, we worked at a food bank, we went to animal shelters… Really those were my favorite moments to see our students show incredible empathy and perspective taking, and really it was Gaynor at its best. Our students put others’ needs before their own, and really stepped up to the plate.
I’m happy to still get to do a little bit of that with Blue students. We still do the Sweet Readers program, where students work with adults who have Alzheimer’s. I loved being in the classroom and there were lots of moments that were wonderful, but these were really special, out-of-the-ordinary student moments. Doing community service is wonderful and very rewarding, but we’d always come back as a teaching team and say, wow, our kids were amazing out there.
You recently made the move from Blue Cluster teacher to Admissions Associate and Educational Evaluator! What prompted you to make the switch?
I [taught] for 13 years. I loved working with the oldest students, and I loved developing curricula. I had some other opportunities to help support developing curricula for other clusters and through those experiences, and just growing as a professional, I thought I’d like to also work with other age groups. [With] my time as a teacher and having been in the classroom and done the work that we talk about in open houses and admissions events, I thought that my perspective could be valuable in admissions. I felt like I could really speak to what makes Gaynor stand out compared to other specialized schools, and really highlight the work of the teacher and [how that] makes us unique. So it was a big move. I love my Blue team and I was very sad to leave them, but happy to still be a part of the team through Names not Numbers and some other opportunities. I love the admissions team and I think we work really well [together], and we bring different perspectives and experiences to the table.
What do you find most rewarding about working with incoming families?
I really have enjoyed working with families from the start—when they’re looking for a new school, unsure what the best fit for their student is, and then taking them through the whole admissions process. And then the best part is giving that phone call that says “You’ve been accepted!” It’s wonderful if a family is 
happy and they feel as confident as we are that Gaynor is the right place for their kid, and for a lot of families it’s a relief to hear that there’s someplace like Gaynor.
My most rewarding experience up to this point was the new student welcome event recently, and it was really meaningful seeing all of the new students and thinking that, wow, my team and I have helped to set these students and families on an incredible journey. It was an emotional experience to see all these new students and to think that I played a part in that.
What do you do when you’re not at Gaynor?
I’m a mom to a soon to be kindergartener, Patrick. So a lot of my weekends involve going to birthday parties and other kid-oriented activities. My husband and I have always loved to travel and thankfully Patrick is a really good traveler! I am a big history enthusiast, so any place we travel will involve some history museums or historic sites, and Patrick has been really good and receptive to this. As a former history teacher, that’s really important for me, to instill a love of history in my son.
I love to read when I can. I love bike riding. Shout out to Music Specialist Michael Piedmont; a big part of my middle and high school years was playing the flute and it was really incredible for the past few years to be part of the Gaynor musical!