By Sam Goodykoontz

Despite it only being her third year at TPA, Dr. Rachel Wallington has already made a huge impact here.

She has helped so many students learn Algebra II and Precalculus, two tough subjects, in a fun and productive way. She also helped provide stability during the uncertainty of early online school in a year marked by Covid-19.

Now her contributions have earned her the National Honor Society Teacher of the Year award.

So how did Dr. Wallington first hear about TPA?

“I definitely knew about [it] by the time I was in college,” she said. “I was at Chandler Prep. I had worked with Dr. Porter at Chandler Prep, and then I had taken some time off of teaching. Then I came back to teach at Chandler Prep again, and I wasn’t happy. My dad also teaches there, so we were teaching together, and he’s like, ‘You should email Dr. Porter.’

“I was like, ‘Well … OK.’ So, I emailed Dr. Porter, and Mr. Thurston was retiring, so there happened to be an opening.”

It wasn’t as easy as it may sound. “I applied, and I did a teaching demo, which went terribly wrong,” she said, laughing. Not everyone shared that evaluation. “I felt it went terribly, but apparently other people didn’t, and then I got the job offer,” she said.

While the pandemic has been a challenge, Dr. Wallington has adapted to online learning. When online school started, none of us had any idea what was going on, and we were not sure how we would be able to function while attending school over a computer.

However, Dr. Wallington had all of her classes under control by the second day of online school. Surprisingly, she “didn’t have any more experience teaching online than anyone else. But I really went into it, I wanted you guys to learn.”

She knew there would be differences. “I didn’t expect the students to learn as much as they would in a classroom,” she said. “So that was my main goal: how can I help these guys still continue to learn? I had Khan Academy, which makes it a lot nicer, because I could just assign stuff. I know in other classes that wouldn’t have been as easy, so I had an advantage.”

We thought Dr. Wallington was an old pro at teaching over Zoom, but she really just tried something she’s never done before and approached it with all the effort she can give.

What Dr. Wallington loves about TPA the most is that “the faculty are really, really great.” Some groups of teachers hang out together, she said, “but I don’t feel like there are cliques. I don’t feel excluded. I feel like I can go up to any teacher and ask for advice or help. As far as teaching, I like that I have smaller class sizes and that I have less classes.”

Her view on the faculty also accurately describes the community at our school. We have our groups, but we are all still friends.