I was born in Murray, Utah in 1970. I grew up in Midvale and attended East Midvale Elementary, Midvale Middle School, and Hillcrest High School; graduating in 1988.  Steven Klingler and I were married twenty-six years ago and have raised three daughters and one son.  Having a family so young made completing my college education a challenge and I was finally given the opportunity to start again four years ago.  Western Governors University was a program I had been waiting for because it enabled me take classes online and still be available to take care of my family.  It was a challenging program, but on a flexible schedule.

                Raising four children provided me with many opportunities to volunteer in schools and with various other children’s programs.  I discovered that I enjoyed working in schools and assisting teachers.  I especially enjoyed running the Advanced Reading Program, which I did singlehandedly for seven years.  It was so exciting to see students discover a love for reading and literature and  I found myself reading children’s books so that I could make knowledgeable recommendations to the students.  It helped me discover a wide variety of great children’s authors and books that can help students fall in love with reading.

                As my children started graduating from elementary school, I found myself missing my time in the schools interacting with the students.  Being surrounded by teenagers is not the same as working with young children and I missed it and becoming a teacher seemed  like a the logical choice when I had the chance to go back to college.  I enjoy being around young children, with their sense of humor and energy, and even the chaos they can cause.  I went into teaching because it is where I want to be, which seems to make me more effective at my job.

                At the start of the 2013-2014 school year,  I was provided with the opportunity to teach a fifth grade class at Peruvian Park Elementary in the Canyons School District in Sandy Utah.  I loved it!  I was able to learn so much about encouraging students and presenting effective lessons that help them learn the state curriculum.  The students were wonderful, but they came with some challenges, as every group of students will.  The most alarming was the reading fluency rates.  They’re scores were abnormally low for the neighborhood’s socioeconomic level.  I went right to work and found fun innovative ways to encourage the students to practice their reading skills.  I am so proud of my students and the growth they were able to make.  All of my students made progress and no one regressed.

                Being the only teacher in the school with a portable classroom, I had to deal with some unique logistical challenges.  My portable classroom arrived late and I was unable to even enter it until two days prior the first day of school. The classroom had no power until halfway through the first day of school and no functional internet until October. As a new teacher, I established a fun and accepting atmosphere for my class and created unique classroom procedures that worked for our classroom situation while maintaining school and district procedures.  Through all of this, I kept a positive attitude and found innovative and creative ways to solve problems without negatively impacting students by working closely with the school administration and staff.

                My husband received a surprise job offer in Anaheim and I had to leave the school and job that I loved at the end of the 2013-2014 school year.  I miss it terribly and quickly accepted a job at Canyon View Elementary as a lunch duty attendant while awaiting the arrival of my California teaching credential.  It’s been fun, but a can’t wait to teach my own class again.