There are a lot of new faces here at AHS this year including Stephanie Kelley. Kelley is the World History teacher this year and is excited to see where this journey takes her. Before Kelley became a teacher, she worked in “design, marketing, and photography,” and spent 15 years working with all kinds of people from all over the world. She has even lived in Austria and Germany for 6 months. Kelly said, “It was a really great experience.” When Covid hit, she began teaching  to people over Zoom meetings and was asked by teachers, principals, superintendents if she ever thought about becoming a teacher. This is something that had never interested her before. 

The Kelley’s moved to the area two years ago because her husband is from the district and knew Atlantic would be the perfect place for them. She started her teaching career at Griswold teaching Intro to Law, American Sports History, Economics, and “a bunch of other fun stuff,” and she knew she wanted to take the position as soon as it opened up. 

For the upcoming school year she is excited to teach only one class instead of many different ones. She also has a new curriculum this year, “It’s SAVVAS but it looks really really good.” A quote she lives by is from Eleanor Roosevelt “If life were predictable, it would cease to be life and be without flavor,” because every day when the kids walk into her classes, she said nothing is the same and everything is always changing from day to day to even the last class period, “tea has been spilled.” She enjoys every day being different, she doesn’t like it when it’s the same all the time. 

In Kelley’s free time, she enjoys bussing her kids to their different activities. Otherwise, she enjoys reading, drinking coffee, and strength training. When life gets hard, her support system in order is as follows: God, family, and church. Kelley said she has been described as “very eccentric and goofy.” She likes to laugh, and enjoys other things, but she also likes to dig “deeply” into history. She doesn’t like easy things, she said. “It’s not rewarding enough.”