You would think that the only students here at Imagine Prep Surprise are the middle schoolers that run through the halls and the high schoolers that tower over them. Well, they aren’t the only ones that are going to school. That’s right, some of our teachers here are hitting the books again and going back to college!

Being a teacher is already stressful enough, with all the lesson planning, grading, and keeping the virtue of patience, but that didn’t stop these teachers from wanting to continue their education.

The main reason why these teachers wanted to go back to college was because they wanted to learn more information about the subject they teach and new ways to instruct their classes.

Sara Schultz, a high school science teacher here at the Prep, is currently attending Northern Arizona University to study science teachings to get her master’s degree.

“I wanted to improve upon my knowledge of science content I use in my classroom as well as having the opportunity to learn about new teaching strategies and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS),”  said Schultz.

However one of the teachers went back to college for more reasons other than learning new content and teaching techniques.

Amy Boven, who is currently attending Texas A&M University and is studying to get her MED (Master’s Degree in Education) in school counseling, inspires to be more than a middle school Global Perspectives teacher at Imagine Prep.

“To become a school counselor, you need to have a master’s degree,” said Boven. “It’s part of the certification process in the state of Arizona and I think all states have that as a requirement. School counseling is that kind of the realm that I see myself being into.”

Alixandria Guzman, a middle and high school science teacher at the Prep, also wanted to go back for not only academic purposes. Guzman explained that she had to go back to college because it was a requirement.

“I wanted to continue working on my career path, so working towards being the best teacher I could be, and also mandating to Pennsylvania law that I have to go back if I wanted to maintain my teaching degree,” said Guzman.

Even though these teachers know that they are doing this for the better and that this will overall benefit them in the future, they still collectively agree that there is one struggle that they can’t escape from, and that’s time.

Alexa Pupo, a middle and high school history teacher at the Prep, recently graduated Grand Canyon University in April, and earned her Master’s Degree in Public Administration with an emphasis of Government and Policy, explained the struggles of trying to keep up with life and school at the same time.

“It was really hard to balance time,” said Pupo. “Just getting my assignments done and my papers written, doing all of the things for school, and then being a mom. There’s just a lot of things to juggle.”

Schultz also mentioned that her performance as a teacher and a student was affected because of the struggle of managing time.

“There is not enough time to do everything that needs to be done for both work and school to the level of completeness and accuracy at which I would like it to be done,” said Schultz.

Even though theses teachers need to deal with balancing their work life, school life, and personal life every single day, all of them know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. And that if they just continue to work hard and think positively, in no time they will get to have that diploma in their hands and have the privilege to proudly say “I did it!”.