Jacelyn Cole

Q: How long have you been teaching?

A: This is my fifth year as a counselor. I spent four years in a school district in Kansas City on the Kansas side of the city. It was called Blue Valley Northwest High School, it’s a really big school district, so I actually didn’t teach at all before I started counseling. That used to be a requirement but it’s not anymore, so I went straight into counseling, and I’m starting my fifth year.

Q: What brought you to Clayton?

A: My husband and I just recently got married in December. He accepted a job here so we moved from Kansas City on memorial day weekend. I haven’t really been here that long, but I’m excited to be here and of course I’ve heard fantastic things about the district and don’t live too far away so it seemed like a perfect fit for us.

Q: What is your favorite TV show?

A: That’s a hard one. My favorite TV show of all time is probably Breaking Bad.

Q: What do you look forward most to at CHS?

A: I really look forward to just getting to know the kids. Everyone keeps saying I’m going to love the students here. It seems like everyone has a lot of diverse interests and is open to speaking their mind, so I’m ready to understand the school as a whole. I hate not knowing everything right at the beginning. But mostly getting to know the kids and families and learning and growing from everybody.

Q: Do you have a favorite story from teaching?

A: I had a student that I knew from my previous district that was a sophomore that transferred in from another school district. He had a really difficult time with his parents and ended up living with his older brother. When I first got to know him he was just an unhappy person and really struggled emotionally and academically and just through a lot of hard work and helping him find the right resources, he ended up graduating this past May. I think he still has some room to grow, but I think he’s happier than he was just a couple years ago, so that was a cool thing to see.

Q: What were you like as a student?

A: I was a pretty good student. I don’t know that I challenged myself in high school as much as maybe I should have, I was really involved. I was a dancer, I was on the high school dance team, but I was also on a competitive team, and so I was crazy busy every single night, and I was traveling a lot of weekends for competitions. I played the piano and I competed with that a little bit and was in organizations in the high school too, so I think that I prioritized some of those things over some of my classes, but I did fine, there were some classes I probably should have put more time and effort into, but I still managed to do well in them. I think I really found my niche in grad school, when I discovered counseling and working with students and now I’ve really excelled at that.

Q: Do you have any other hobbies?

A: I wish I still danced. In my previous high school, I was a coach for the dance team, their assistant coach, so that was a good way for me to kind of be involved, but I haven’t found anywhere where I can actually dance. I would like to. I haven’t honestly played the piano for a long time. Sometimes when I go over to my parents, I pick up some sheet music and just try to see if there’s any muscle memory left there and a lot of times there is. I am a big bookworm, I like to read. For some reason I’m into murder mystery novels, which I don’t know why, but I just got into it. Going for walks, talking with my husband.