All students tend to wonder where their teachers may have gone to high school and college or what influenced them to become a teacher. Introducing Ms. VanDyke, she is currently a math teacher here at West Carrollton High School and her room is down in the 400’s. She graduated from WCHS in 1986. After high school, Ms. VanDyke went to Walsh University earning her Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics and Computer Science with a minor in Education. She chose Walsh University because it was in a small town and she enjoyed the atmosphere there a lot. Ms. VanDyke said she has taught at West Carrollton for 21 years, and before that, she taught at Dunbar for 10 years. Even though she never planned on working at West Carrollton, she has taught here the longest. 

Ms. VanDyke explained that although her teachers influenced her decisions to teach, she also knew she didn’t want to sit at a desk all day for work. She also explained that being a teacher, she never has the same day twice and that’s a reason why she enjoys teaching. She enjoys being able to see her past students grow from when she had them as freshmen to seeing them as seniors, watching them grow as people and as students. However, she said her least favorite thing about teaching is how much time she loses. She mentioned that she usually spends a lot of time at home grading papers or tests for her classes and planning work for the week. Ms. VanDyke enjoys how much more acceptance there is in the school now compared to when she graduated from here. She expressed that there were more cliques when she was in high school and it felt like there wasn’t much acceptance going around. She is glad to see how it has changed since then and loves seeing so much more diversity in the school.