Beth Grieser is the middle school English teacher who has been working at Bethany for about 20 years now. Her hard work and relationships with students and administration has made the Bethany community a wonderful place. Although we are sad that she will leave us next school year, the memories with students as well as faculty here will be remembered.
She tells me that her experience teaching here has been wonderful. As a teacher, she is grateful for the opportunity to be able to teach at Bethany. “It has been a great staff to work with.” she says, “Teachers care about their students and are able to work as a team, supporting one another. They are also given the opportunity to create lessons that are creative and hands-on. This is something that has slowly been disappearing in other schools as the focus has often shifted to preparing for state tests.”
She also has many memories while working in the middle school area. Her favorite memory was when the middle school wing was built, when they moved the modular trailers and the art barn into an actual building. She was excited because “This meant that bells would ring- indicating class changes, bathrooms were in the same building, and animals would not get under the modular, die, and stink up our classroom!” Her favorite memory was the day of the move, all of the students helped carry desks, chairs, and boxes of materials to the classrooms. She explains, “We then tried to carry on with classes that afternoon if we could find what we needed at that point! It is a gift to have the facilities that we now have and sometimes take for granted.”
Her favorite part about working with the students is that she gets to find different ways to meet with them and help them out individually. Altogether, she says that the thing she will miss the most is the relationships that she has with students and faculty.