Since I am new to Pleasant Hill, I thought some of you might like to know a little about me. I will share personally and professionally because each side of my life affects the other. My husband Mark and I have been married 19 years. Mark is an Engineering Operations Technician at Kaw Valley Electric Coop. We have two sons. Alex is a Sophomore at Seaman High School. He loves to play his trumpet in the band and also is currently a Life Scout working toward Eagle. Elijah is a 5th grader at West Indianola. He enjoys being outside and is also in Scouts. Elijah has a seizure disorder, has had a partial hemispherectomy, was seizure free for 3 years and recently began having seizures again. He will most likely have another surgery to stop the seizures once again. He has special academic needs. All of my boys love four wheelers and dirt bikes. They are always adult supervised, wear their helmets, and truly enjoy the sport on the bike trail at our home. We are members of First Southern Baptist Church where Mark teaches Alex’s class of sophomore boys and I help in the toddler program.
Professionally, I graduated from Emporia State University in the Fall of 1991 with a Bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education. We moved to Topeka soon after and I soon had Alex. I decided to stay home and raise my children while they were young. When Elijah was small I went back to school to pursue my Master’s degree in Special Education in 1999. We moved to North Topeka and I began teaching in the Special Education Resource room in 2000. I taught Special Education at Indian Creek Elementary in the Seaman School district beginning in the Fall of 2000. I taught in that resource room for 6 years and was inspired by my friend, mentor, and boss, Craig Carter, to pursue another Master’s degree in Education Administration. I enjoyed my job, but felt it was time to impact learners of all ages at a different level. I was then given a wonderful opportunity to be the Principal at Indian Creek Elementary for the past two years. Then learned of my transfer to Pleasant Hill last Spring. I was so excited as I had heard so many great things about this wonderful community!
I LOVED being a Special Education Teacher and I LOVE being a principal. Being an advocate for all children and their families is something that is very important to me. I truly enjoy working with students, teachers, parents, and the community and I’m so very excited to be a part of that at Pleasant Hill.
This blog has been created to give parents and the community an opportunity to learn about what’s going on at Pleasant Hill and to give feedback. You can post comments after this article and there will be other articles on other topics periodically throughout the school year. The comments will be monitored and approved by me before they actually show up on the board. I truly appreciate your input and am anxious to hear from you and meet you as the school year begins!!!
tags: new principal, Pleasant Hill Elementary