Stephanie Cassell is a new teacher at John I. Burton high school. She teaches English, along with Online Communication, Theatre, and directing competitive one-act.
Mrs. Cassell previously taught English in Jenkins, Kentucky city schools for 7 years before coming to Burton. She taught grades 7-12, but primarily 9th through 11th grade. She also taught Journalism (newspaper and yearbook), Creative Writing, Speech, and Drama.
Mrs. Cassell has a Bachelor of Arts degree in English with a Writing concentration from Birmingham-Southern College in Alabama, where she grew up. She attended UVA-Wise later on to take education classes to obtain her teaching license. Recently, Mrs. Cassell has completed classes through an online program at Morehead State University for a master's degree in English, but still has to pass an exit exam to officially have her master's degree.
She originally planned on being copywriter in the business world. "When I was in college the first time, I was not at all interested in teaching," she says. After working as a copywriter for a few years, she decided it wasn't as exciting as she expected. "When I had my own kids, I started realizing what an important job teaching is and I wanted to do something where I could make more of a difference instead of just writing ads to sell stuff nobody really needs anyway," she says.
The adjustment to John I. Burton was quite easy for Mrs. Cassell, considering that her children attended school here, "Burton feels like home to me since my sons went here and I live in Norton. I already knew a lot of people, and everybody has been very welcoming." The biggest adjustment for Mrs. Cassell was being hired only a few weeks before school started and not having a lot of time to work with her classroom. "I really like all the classes I am teaching, and the students make it fun," she replies when asked about her experience in John I. Burton so far.
Another challenge for Mrs. Cassell is adapting to the VA SOL standards, "Even though I taught a similar class with an end-of-course test in Kentucky, I am still learning specifically about the VA SOL to make sure my juniors are as prepared as possible," she says.
She has two sons, 20 and 24 years old, and a husband. Outside of school, she attends a lot of music festivals since both of her sons play music and she enjoys attending whatever festivals they play at. Along with music festivals, she enjoys reading, creative writing, and baking.