Before coming to teach, math teacher Kathleen Baggot enjoyed helping people she tutored in high school and would volunteer for after school programs in college. It was this, and other leadership activities she took on in high school that made her want to take up teaching.
“Mrs. Baggot is a friendly and hardworking teacher. She wants the best for her students, and she is always willing to help,” Brittney Zettergren, division chair of math and science, said.
Advice that Baggot would like her students to carry on outside of her class is to communicate with teachers, let them know what’s happening so that they can help.
«I learned that in college the hard way, I didn’t go and reach out to my professor when I was struggling. It hurt me, and then I just started asking people for help and it helped me hugely.”
Also while in college, Baggot had the opportunity to travel abroad. She spent a semester in Spain.
“Studying abroad there, you’re basically forced to learn the language. But I did study Spanish in college and in high school. I was like, “I actually really like this,’ and kept on adding on courses, and it actually became one of my majors.”
Outside of school, she has visited 12 European countries and has been on cruises on the Carribean. Now that she is married and has two children, she does not travel as much anymore. Instead, Baggot is the advisor for esports club, a competitive gaming club that competes with other high schools in the state for state championship titles.
“We compete for Overwatch, Fortnight, League of Legends, Rocket League, and Smash Brothers,” Baggot said.
Being an advisor is not her only leadership position. She is the Algebra 1 representative for in the District so she takes feedback from the Algebra 1 team members and discusses it with leaders from the other schools to try to improve tests and curriculum.
Cecelia Fitzgerald, junior and former student of Baggot says a typical day in her class would be to come in with homework out while they did bell work and Baggot would go around checking for completion.
“She definitely changed up the lesson several times because springboards lessons were weird so we could have also worked on a sheet of paper. We usually didn›t get homework until the last couple of minutes and it was usually in springboard,” Fitzgerald said.
Christmas is coming up, and Baggot usually celebrates Christmas on Christmas Eve with her side of the family, which is when she meets up with her brothers and sisters. There, they usually play a game called white elephant.
«With the adults, we do white elephant where we get a cheap gift no more than twenty bucks and it’s sort of goofy and funny and we do an exchange on that,” Baggot said.