By: Aleah Blaszak – OwlFeed

Find me on Twitter @BlaszakAleah

Here at Agua Fria, we have a whole department full of math teachers who take pride in what they do and care tremendously about their students. But when it comes to teachers that you know without a doubt have a genuine love for teaching high school students, Olivia Allpress immediately comes to mind.

Upon walking into Mrs. Allpress’ room for the first time, I saw a teacher happily talking to a group of  students that surrounded her. She excused herself from the conversation and welcomed me in with a huge smile and a warm greeting.

Being that she was my first interview, I was a bit nervous but she immediately made me feel like I was having a conversation with a family friend.

We began the interview and I found out some more things about the beloved math teacher. Unsurprisingly, Mrs. Allpress, a native of Washington state, is no stranger to helping and teaching high school students.

While attending the University of Washington in Seattle, Wash., Mrs. Allpress studied to be a doctor and even majored in biology, but fell in love with something else in the process — yes, Mr. Allpress, whom she later married, but also helping and teaching high school students.

She signed up for a program that allowed her to mentor high school students getting ready to apply for college. She explained that joining the program taught her a lot about how much kids don’t know about their potential.

When asked what the hardest thing about teaching math is, she replied with, “making everyday relevant.” She went further into detail about how it can be hard sometimes to convince the students that what they are learning matters and is relevant in the real world. But Mrs. Allpress isn’t one to give up.

Mrs. Allpress was very excited to say that in the future she would love to try out a new teaching technique called Plickers. On https://www.plickers.com/ it is described as a, “powerfully simple tool that lets teachers collect real-time formative assessment data without the need for student devices.”

Besides teaching math at Agua Fria she also loves to do things outside of school, especially with her husband. She loves to swim, hike, watch Netflix, play/coach basketball, and cutest of all, spend time with her husband. Her favorite activity that she and her husband do together is pick out new, crazy recipes to cook together every Saturday.

Finally, I asked Mrs. Allpress what she believes it means to #BeAnOwl. She said it’s about growing your family. “Whoever you meet, they become your family, you treat them like family,” she said. It’s really quite beautiful because it’s true. If you ever want to meet a genuinely awesome person stop by Mrs. Allpress’s room, she’s sure to greet you with a smile!