With a new school year comes an influx of new faces. This year we welcome multiple new members of our school’s fabulous faculty and staff. Among them is Ms. Patricia Young. Ms. Young is currently teaching freshman theology. I had the pleasure of interviewing her earlier this year. Ms. Young previously taught in Tallahassee, Florida. She taught Algebra I, Algebra II, World History, American History, Pre-Calculus, Leadership, and Internship. She was also athletic director in her sixth and final year, teaching only an internship class: “I always taught Math every year. Sometimes I taught History and I also taught Leadership because I had always done Student Government.” Ms. Young tells me that she was inspired to become a teacher by the ones she had. “I always had a good time at school. I saw the school environment as a lot of fun. I really wanted to teach math because I saw how much people struggled with it.” When asked what she missed about teaching math she told me that she liked helping students understand what they thought they couldn’t.

She likes theology for incorporating a faith aspect that she could not easily do before teaching math. Ms. Young is excited to incorporate interesting deep-dives and activities in her theology classes. She is most excited to teach the Apostle Charism and Theology of the Body. She would love to get back to math in the future but theology is a new experience and she is interested in seeing how it will play out. “Having freshmen is a good place to start.” She tells me that freshmen coming from different places in their faith journey makes it fun to bring them together and help them through the part of it they are at.

I went on to ask her about what led her to join the Apostle mission. “I’ve known the Apostles since I was in eighth grade. I’ve known probably fifteen or so of their sisters throughout the years. I was working alongside them at a school in Tallahassee. After my third year there, the Apostles left that high school. I think I saw that sometimes, when their charism is the only thing you know, you don’t recognize it right away. But when you lose them, you realize what a big impact they were making. As soon as they left there was a void to be filled in the school.” She says it was a charism she felt a part of and one she hopes to spread. This is why she feels so excited to teach that charism to her freshmen students and share that joy with them. She wants to learn to educate the way she sees the Apostles do and help them do the work that they are doing. “I’ve always had a heart for education. It was a charism I liked and grew into.”

Ms. Young is not the only new faculty member this year. We also welcome Mr. Maklad, teaching in History, Business, and English. Ms. Ryan is teaching Math, and Mr. Swan is teaching Science and Pre-calculus. We also welcome new staff members to our school: Mr. Degnan, our new athletic director, Ms. Johnson and Ms. Zink, assistants in campus ministry, and Ms. Riemann, our new director for institutional advancement. We hope they’ve had and will continue to have a warm welcome and a great first year. Thank you to Ms. Young for so graciously giving up her time to speak with me.