Bonjour!

I am Halina Solachava-Chamutouskaya, Mme Solachava for my students. I teach French Immersion language courses from 6th to 8th grade. 

I joined Hidden River in 2019, prior to which I taught 4th and 3rd grade at L'Etoile du Nord French Immersion School for 9 years.

I come from Belarus, a small East-European country, where I grew up bilingual. After graduating from Minsk State Linguistic University, I taught French at college there. I spent the following six years in Magdeburg, Germany, where I worked as a tour guide in a 1200 year-old city and studied German, English, and education. At Otto-von-Guericke Universität, I had the opportunity to make second language acquisition the focus of my studies and was fortunate to work on a neurolinguistic project examining Russian-German bilinguals.

I moved with my family to Minnesota in 2008 after my husband won the Green Card Lottery. We are especially appreciative of Minnesota's nature, especially Lake Superior, and the people from all over the world who make this their home. I have five multilingual children, all of them former or current SPPS students, so immersion and languages are also part of my life at home.

Outside of school, I love traveling, gardening, foraging, reading and spending time with my family.

The best way to contact me is via email: halina.solachava@spps.org

I am looking forward to a great year with all of you.