Amy Rector

Why did you decide to leave Westside?

I didn’t leave Westside because I didn’t love it here — because I did love it here. The big reason why I left was because being an English teacher — at least the kind I wanted to be — was becoming an all-consuming job. I worked every night after my kids went to bed and every weekend. For a little while I didn’t mind that. Before I had kids for sure I didn’t mind that. But right now my kids are five and eight, and I felt like I was missing out on stuff for them, and I wasn’t able to be as flexible as other moms I saw in different jobs.

What are you doing now and where?

I work for a non-profit called Avenue Scholars. [Former Westside instructor] Terry Fischer, who also works there. The mission of Avenue Scholars is to work with kids who are living below the poverty level and who have typically struggled in school. I work with juniors and seniors who have a GPA of 2.5 or below and would be first-generation college students. The goal is to identify those kids who still want to be successful and help them navigate high school. Then the program follows them to Metro, and somebody from our program helps them through an associate’s degree, or if they just wanted to do some general classes at Metro then transfer to a four-year school. We also have career advisors who try to help those kids, once they graduate, find a career. The goal of the program is to break the cycle of poverty for that kid.

What is the biggest difference between where you are now and Westside?

It’s not crazy different in terms of what I’m doing on a day-to-day basis; working with students, trying to help them work through things, get better at the skills that they struggle with, and enhance the ones that they already have.

Are there any aspects of Westside you miss?

I miss the atmosphere of Westside. I loved the students I had, and I loved the classes that I taught.

What aspects of your new job are better than your old one at Westside?

There’s more flexibility. For example, I’m able to go to my kids’ Valentine’s Day parties at their schools, where I wasn’t able to do that when I was teaching. That’s the reason why I left Westside, and that has been a positive change.

Lonnie Moore

Why did you decide to leave Westside?

Because I could get a retirement check, and then go to work somewhere else and get a paycheck. It was a chance to make some more money. A lot of people do it. I’m not the first one to do it.

What are you doing now and where?

I teach social studies at Omaha South. I’m teaching AP Human Geography. I’m teaching regular geography — although it’s quite a bit different from what I did at Westside because it’s human geography there — and I set up a world regional at Westside. And then I’m teaching AP World History, which Westside doesn’t have. [Compared to the classes I taught at Westside] one is exactly the same and the other two are similar.

Why did you decide to go to Omaha South?

One of the reasons I was placed at South was to pull it up. The principal [Cara Riggs] who came two years ago wanted to see South be better. She made it a magnet school and that created a lot of excitement. Now some of it is the building catching up with what’s actually happening. In the past there was a lot of, “Well this is South and it’s okay,” and now its, “Hey, we wanna be better and we can be better.” I think it will get there, not gradually, but making jumps in computer technologies and photocopies.

What is the biggest difference between where you are now and Westside?

Probably the resources as much as anything. At Westside, students all have computers. There, we don’t even have enough textbooks for everybody. We have some computer labs, but the computers don’t always work. Getting photocopies made can be difficult. It didn’t used to be this way at South, but it is right now because there are over 2,300 students in the building; space can be an issue, as far as when you aren’t teaching. Where you’re not teaching, your room is being used by somebody else. So it’s difficult to go find a workplace. We have a teacher work-room, but it’s almost overflowing with teachers trying to get work done. I’m adjusting to what the system is, and learning what I need to do to be different, or being a squeaky-wheel to get things changed. It’s better than it was week two, but it’s a long ways from being what it needs to be for me to be the effective teacher that I want to be.