Mr. Shima, a native South Bay resident, has been working with Hermosa Beach City School District for over 7 years. In addition to teaching 1st grade, he has been choreographing and directing the Valley spring musicals since the 1999 production Bugsy Malone.

Before deciding to become a full-time teacher, Mr. Shima worked for over 10 years in sales, finance, and business development in both the mortgage and software development industries. Though successful in those careers, he was very unsatisfied at the end of the day. During this time, he continued to perform on stage and teach swing dance classes in the evenings. It was in 1999 when Mr. Shima met Kris Basua, the since retired district music teacher, who asked him if he'd be interested in choreographing a musical at Hermosa Valley. He absolutely loved teaching kids and with the encouragement of Ms. Basua and his wife-to-be Wendy, he decided to leave the business world and pursue teaching.

Since making that decision, Mr. Shima has been having a blast with life! He enjoys inspiring children of all ages and finding unique ways to integrate his theater and music background into the classroom. His constant goal is to make learning fun, engaging, and interactive, while challenging his students academically to fulfill their potentials. Mr. Shima has particularly been enjoying teaching 1st grade, as well working with the incredible faculty at Hermosa View. He hopes for many more years like it to come!

Other than teaching, Mr. Shima likes to spend time singing, dancing, acting and playing his trademark ukulele. He has been an avid video gamer since the early days of Pong, Asteroids, and Space Invaders and has owned nearly every game console since Intellivision in 1980. He enjoys reading children's literature, as well as being a big comic book fan. He loves spending time with his wife, who has been a Montessori teacher and administrator for over 15 years, and their beautiful daughter, Pepper.

Mr. Shima also teaches workshops on a regular basis at universities such as CSU Long Beach and CSU Bakersfield, and has been a featured clinician at California Music Educators Association events. He is also regularly invited to teach workshops at the B.E.S.T. Arts convention in Long Beach, which annually hosts nearly one thousand pre-school teachers. At all these events, Mr. Shima educates current and future teachers how to effectively and easily integrate music and movement with academics.