Outside of school I paddleboard. I love to paddleboard and I love the beach. But really my passions do all center around kids – whether it be the ones here or I have four children of my own, two who are still in high school. So, everything in my life does revolve around the high school world and either homework, schoolwork, college planning – that kind of thing.
I was the AP English 12 teacher here for years, so moving into the gifted resource teacher role was a little frightening because I didn’t really grasp how much I got to be with kids and in the classroom. I’ve been able to do that more than I even thought I would be able to, and that’s just what I love – to be with kids when they are working, when they’re struggling, when they’re getting things. Through the GRT position I have gotten to experience things way outside of my comfort zone, which is English, but the math and the sciences and the social studies, that’s been really exciting for me because it’s taught me so many things that I either didn’t know or forgot that I knew from way back in school. That’s been really fun – to be in all those different classrooms.
What would you do if you weren’t a teacher?
I can’t imagine anything else. Honestly, I cannot. I’ve done it for 20 years and people say: How long are you going to keep doing it? Until I can’t get up and come to work anymore. I just cannot imagine. I’ve said before, if I won the lottery I would still teach school. I might take a few more days off throughout the year, but I would still teach school because it’s just what I was made to do.
#WeAreVBSchools
