Why is Avondale schools a great place to work?
“I came here in 1999. My first round was here until 2001. I filled in as a guest teacher and there was a community then that was very close knit and when I left, I said if I ever had a chance to come back I would and I worked for the school district for 16 years and that was an amazing experience. Honestly, I have to say in teaching I've never really had a bad day. I never really had a bad day in Pontiac either or a challenging day here. Sure there are some rough days but I can’t say that I ever felt I just can’t do this anymore. For me the community is what I first encountered and when an opportunity arose, and there were many moving pieces in Pontiac and there were pieces moving and other districts, and there were pieces moving in Avondale and the Lord saw fit to change where I was working at a very specific time in life and I had an opportunity to come back to Avondale, and as I had said before, when I left, if there was ever an opportunity to come back or to work someplace else, besides Pontiac, I would certainly entertain the opportunity but leaving Pontiac was really tough too because the community that I had there from the superintendent down to the people that I worked with was very a very tight community. Returning to Avondale is like coming home and it’s been a great last 10 years. I guess I came back here in January 2016.
Why is Avondale school is a great place for students?
“The tremendous opportunity this particular lab offers if we’re looking at the IT piece here and the only school school district in the state of Michigan that has Cyber security, testing forensics, investigation networking, and all of that stuff. We have a lab called a Mark Lab and this is more of a college level environment. We are the only school in the state of Michigan that has this programming in a high school and there are about a dozen schools in the United States that have the lab for testing in high school move onto career centers which is a career class but the career centers there’s a few that what we have, not a whole lot that have this stent of cyber security and then you’re going to college when a student leaves here they leave with certification they leave with a certification that’s articulated with many of the Michigan schools. Their certificate means a lot to industry and they can go right out and find a position anywhere from let’s say $35,000 to $65,000 straight out of high school and had one other student who left and after a few years was making six figures”.
What’s one word you would use to describe Avondale Schools?
“Phenomenal. I love my job. Avondale makes it very easy to work, I know my role, I know my position. I’m a teacher. I’m a CT director as well. That’s the perspective that every employee needs to have every day I’m here to work. My goal is to hopefully motivate them to learn things that are going to make a difference in their life.”
What is one phrase that you would describe as the reason you stay?
“We are moving toward project based learning. What is Problem Based Learning? PBL is starting with a problem that needs to be solved. We have to base it on information that we’ve learned information we’re going to try and eventually come up with a solution and a finished product that works and that is true PBL and every single day we need to come in with the project that we’re working on solving a problem and when we get done, we have the finished product and we get presented with another problem. Avondale now wants to pursue new tech and that would be a great selling point to a future teacher that we are going down that road. This is where students learn and students take ownership and students are empowered and that’s what’s going to make Avondale even greater than it is now”.
Why should a first year teacher choose Avondale?
Look at the big picture. While the pay might be less, there are benefits that aren’t directly in your paycheck. Consider the longevity.
