Walking through the halls of a new
school scares a lot of people, especially when it means the beginning of their
first year of high school. A smiling, welcoming face helps anyone in such a
terrifying situation. High schoolers grow accustomed to the adults around them,
taking their help for granted. Surprising some of the students, these adults
chose to work in the high school, to surround themselves with kids, and their
work involves more than just sitting at their desks. They help students with
their sports and clubs, choosing their colleges, keeping up their grades,
interacting with the rest of the student body, and keeping the school afloat.
All those adults impact those students in unimaginable ways. They all have
stories that led them to work in a high school, stories that define them.
Walking into the Prior Lake High
School, I worried about everything: finding my classes, what teachers would be
like, where I would sit for lunch, having enough time in between classes. I
heard someone call my name as I walk past the activities office. I look over to
see a small woman with graying hair and a permanent smile on her face, Nancy
Theis. I remember her from elementary school, helping me through the death of
my brother. When I saw her, knowing she remembered me from nearly ten years
earlier, I knew that she makes a difference in so many lives. Her smiling face
brings happiness and reminds me that no matter how difficult, things get
easier. Nancy made me confident on my first day of high school when I felt that
everything would go wrong. Nancy makes her life goal helping the kids around
her. Nancy helps anyone she encounters with her positivity and desire to help
others.
Nancy Theis, one of seven children,
surrounds herself with children. Her parents led her to go after her dreams.
When she found herself in a job that felt unfulfilling, despite how much she
loved it, she knew she needed to make a change. She wanted to make a difference
in her job, helping people as much as she could and surrounding her with something
she loved: kids. The change scared her, but she knew, that she needed to take
that leap and feel like she makes a difference in her job. The support she
always felt from her parents helped her to take that risk.
That huge change became the biggest
lesson she learned throughout her career. Nancy started working as a project
administrator in the construction field and ended up changing her career to
working in the Prior Lake school district, helping kids to the best of her
ability. At first, she worked as a paraprofessional and now as an admin’s
assistant to the director and assistant directors of activities. Nancy made a
huge career change and just needed faith it would work out and that she could
fulfill her goals in that job.
Nancy’s goals for work include
staying connected with the kids. She wants to “make them feel that they can
succeed at matter what it is that they want to do, that they will succeed.” She
believes that they need the motivation to keep at it, to achieve their goals.
Nancy helps those kids build their self-confidence so that they achieve their
goals by themselves. She knows that not all kids feel completely comfortable
asking for help, and she wants to make them feel comfortable enough to talk to
her and the rest of her coworkers. Nancy loves her job because of the impact
she makes on kids’ lives. When they walk into the office, she loves helping
them.
Nancy always remembers when kids
walk into her office, wanting to get involved with some of the activities
around the school. Some of the kids show little to no interest in athletics,
but Nancy loves helping to get those kids involved in the activities around the
school: intramural sports and clubs. She loves getting the kids involved in
something that they feel comfortable with, and she knows that she helps those
kids feel more comfortable in the school. Nancy loves going to work and “seeing
kids in their elements, academics, athletics, arts, clubs, etc. Whatever they
chose to do.” Those kids motivate her and they remind her of her love for her
job and make her realize she would never want to change anything about her
career and the choices she made to get into her job.
Nancy loves going to her job every
day. She sees every day as a good day because of the people she helps in her
job and the people she works with. Her coworkers, the director and assistant
directors of activities, Russ Reetz and Beth Fuller, influence her daily. Nancy
loves how they support her in what she does and how she does her job. Their
passion for their jobs helps her daily. Nancy and her coworkers love helping
the kids at the high school and they make every day easier for them.
Nancy loves helping kids in her job
at the high school, but before that, she worked as a paraprofessional at
Jeffers Pond, the elementary school that I happened to attend. I first met her
in first grade, where she helped in my class. That year, my older brother
committed suicide and Nancy helped me get through such a tough time. Whenever I
cried in class, which happened a lot, she brought me out into the commons and
calmed me down. Nancy sat and talked to me, making sure that I felt better and
that I realized life goes on. It hurt then, but I knew I would feel better,
knowing that he was in a better place. When I got behind on my schoolwork, she
brought me out into the hall and worked with me, one-on-one, making sure that I
learned all the material. Nancy worried about my well-being and my education.
She helped me and I know that she helps everyone that she gets the opportunity
to help.
Although Nancy loves her job, if
she could change something about her past, she would. Nancy never went to
college, but she if she went to school past high school, she would have gone
into aviation. Her family consists of pilots: her father, her brother-in-law,
and her nephew. She loves flying, no matter what type of plane, big, small,
acrobatic. Her brother-in-law flies an acrobatic airplane, and she loves the
feeling of flying in his plane. She will always remember the thrill of spinning
in circles, looking at the world upside down. She loved seeing the world in a
completely different perspective. Even if Nancy chose to go into aviation, her
passion for helping others would drive her through her career, keep her working
hard, and help her make a difference in the lives of others.
Nancy Theis helps people in every
aspect of her life. Kids at the high school never realize how much she wants to
help them, how much her ability to help them drives her daily to work her
hardest. She loves interacting with the kids and their parents and gets excited
to help them get the best possible experience from high school. Nancy helps
kids daily, even when they take her helping them for granted. Nancy’s love for
her job keeps her helping all the people at the high school, even if they never
notice how much she really helps them.
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