This week’s Staff Spotlight goes to 1st grade teacher, Jill Paracca!
1. What inspired you to pursue a career in education? My first grade teacher, Mrs. Beechum. I don’t remember a thing she taught me, but I remember the love I felt from her and knew I wanted to make others feel that way.
2. What’s your favorite part of working with students? Their eagerness. They are eager to learn, eager to connect, and always eager to help.
3. If you weren’t in education, what do you think you’d be doing? I’ve never wanted to do anything else, so if I wasn’t in education I’d be a stay-at-home dog mom. ☺️
4. Do you have any professional goals you’re working on this year? Each year I strive to be more intentional and engaging than the year before, both with my students and with the curriculum.
5. What’s one thing you love most about our school community? I love the family we have created. The people that I work with are so much more than my co-workers, administrators, and students. They are truly my family who I enjoy spending each day with.
6. Is there a particular moment in the school year you look forward to each year? I absolutely LOVE the Parade of Graduates! It is such a full circle moment to hug, congratulate, and ‘send’ my former babies off to their next chapter.
7. Do you have any hobbies or hidden talents? I don’t have any talents, hidden or otherwise, but I LOVE to read.
8. What’s something people would be surprised to learn about you? When I was growing up, I would spend every summer with my aunt working with primates at the Baton Rouge Zoo.
9. If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go and why? Any place that has 80 degree sunny days and a beach! Give me a sunny day, a book, and the ocean breeze and I am in Heaven!
10. What’s a food you can never say no to? Even my students know that it’s CHOCOLATE ICE CREAM!!