As a senior at Rio Americano in 2017, Brianna Ashley traveled to New York for a modeling gig during Fashion Week. She still models and dances, but now she has returned to her alma mater as a French teacher. 

Ashley joined the staff in January as a one semester replacement for Jennifer Montas, and she hopes to continue in education even if she pursues her other interests.

“I definitely want to continue teaching and I also want to get into school counseling,” she said. “I’m passionate about psychology and mental health so I’d love to be able to incorporate those two.”

After high school, Ashley continued with her education, first attending Folsom Lake College for two years before transferring to Sac State where she got her bachelors in psychology. She received her masters in forensic psychology through an online program with Arizona State. “I got all that done in 4 years,” she said, “so the time you’d traditionally spend getting your undergrad.”

Ashley actually started teaching as a dance instructor when she was in middle school. And she now dances and teaches with 

“I’ve been teaching dance since I was 13 so I hope to continue teaching until I’m old,” she said. “With dance, as I wanted to start utilizing my dance training, I just started going to auditions and pursuing things. Over the last few months, I was in a few music videos which were exciting. I danced on a TV show which was pretty cool. The show was ‘Let’s Make A Deal,’ I was actually a contestant and then they asked me to dance and I was like “okay, let’s go.”

She started modeling as a freshman, but she didn’t land many booking till junior or senior year. “In senior year, I actually went to New York Fashion Week for the week which was pretty insane; definitely a huge milestone for me,” she said. 

Despite traveling to New York and making frequent trips to Los Angeles for work, Ashley’s comfortable at home watching Netflix with her two cats, which she describes as her “furbabies.”

She said that on a typical day,  “if I’m feeling extra ambitious I’ll go to the gym in the morning, but it’s definitely not an everyday thing. Then I come here and I teach all of my incredible students, and then usually I go straight to dance where I teach, then I’ll have a little break, then I go to rehearsals because I’m also on a local professional company. Then I start all over the next day.”

Despite building a professional resume from a young age, Ashley remains both driven and humble.“I’ve been really lucky to be able to do the things I’ve done, especially because I come from a very low income family, so everything I’ve done, I’ve worked extremely hard for. A lot of the jobs I have booked have been self-driven with the support of my mom.”