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First grade Princeton teacher reaches life goal

16 April 2008 – By Sarah A. Wise
NL Staff Writer

After 14 years of teaching elementary school, Tammy Quinn is right where she always envisioned herself. Last month, Tammy checked off one of the goals she had set for her professional life – earning her master’s degree.

“It had always been a goal for me after I finished college,” she said.

But it wasn’t until March of 2006 that she found a way to work her professional goal with her equally important personal life.
“After I had my son, the timing just wasn’t ever right,” she said. “But I heard about the University of Phoenix online, and that worked a lot better with my schedule.”

The program, which was based entirely on coursework done via the Internet, allowed Tammy to keep her family a priority and work in her classes on her schedule, rather than the master schedule of a bigger university. And on March 18 of this year, Tammy earned her degree.

Tammy currently teaches first grade at Princeton, which she said is the grade level she always saw herself teaching. In fact, her inspiration to become a teacher started around the time Tammy was in the first grade, which has motivated her to teach at that grade level.

“I always wanted to teach, from the time I started reading,” she said. “I had a really great first grade teacher, and I really always wanted to teach that age.”

During her first year as a full-time teacher, Tammy said she taught a second and third grade combination class, and stayed there for a while. But when the opportunity came for a first and second combination, she jumped at the chance to work with first graders.
She said that, while working with students in all grade levels gives teachers the opportunity to observe growth in the kids, it’s most evident for her in the first grade.

“Generally they come to you as non-readers or early readers, and the growth by the end of the year is just amazing,” she said. “Even with the weakest child, you pull their portfolio at the end of the year, and there’s just a tremendous amount of growth.”

Being able to watch and facilitate that growth, she said, is the main reason she enjoys working with such young pupils.
“That growth is just so evident in first grade,” she said.

Though Tammy has been working at Princeton School for her entire career, she is not a native of the area. She actually isn’t even a native of the state.

Tammy grew up in West Virginia, and earned her degree from Concord College in Athens, West Virginia. But upon graduation, she found herself looking elsewhere for her job.

“There were just no teaching jobs in West Virginia at the time,” she said. “I had met a woman who had been substitute teaching for 10 years because there just weren’t full-time positions.”

So after moving down to stay with relatives in Wake County, Tammy said she began applying to school systems in all of the surrounding counties. That’s when Fred Bartholomew, who was then the principal at Princeton, contacted her and hired her for a second and third grade combination class.

Tammy moved to Johnston County, and now lives in Smithfield with her husband Douglas and their son Jaime, who is nine. And thought the family lives in Smithfield, Jaime attends Princeton School.

The school’s unique status as a union school was one of the factors that Tammy said made her love the school where she teaches. But she adds that, with the recent influx of students, she will be glad to see the elementary school move to a new building.
“When I subbed in Wake County, I saw so many kids that would attend seven or eight different schools by graduation,” she said, “even if they never moved.”

She said Princeton, at the opposite end of that spectrum, is a place where the community is centered around the school. And though the elementary will be separate next year, she feels that the community will still be a uniting force between the two buildings.

“The whole community really rallies behind the school, and it’s the center of community life,” she said.

When she isn’t busy in the classroom, Tammy said her primary spare-time outlet is getting lost in a good book.
“I love to just kick back and read,’ she said.

She’s also an active member of Holt’s Pond Church of God Prophecy, where she has worked with the children’s church.
Beyond preparing to move over to the new elementary school with Princeton next year, Tammy sees things staying pretty steady in her career. Though she has thought about getting her doctorate, things are pretty ideal for Tammy right now, as she works with the age group of her dreams with her newly obtained master’s degree.

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