Photo taken by: Ota’Ota-Mele Letisi
Kathleen August is a math and leadership teacher at South Salem High School. She first got her undergraduate in Virginia, then got her master’s at Portland State. After getting her undergraduate degree, She first thought she wanted to be a nurse.
“I thought I wanted to be a nurse, but I don’t like blood. So then I thought, well, what can I do? And my math teacher told me that I would be a good math teacher. So that’s what I studied in college,” August said.
She has been teaching for 41 years and has been teaching at South since 2002. One of her favorite things about her job is that everyday is different.
“I love that. You never know what’s going to happen,” August said.
There are many things Mrs.August is looking forward to this year. But she is mainly excited to go back to normal.
“I’m really looking forward to school because we don’t really blame things on Covid. I am happy to get past that, to get back to normal. I feel like this year has been the most normal year that we’ve had in the last five years.” August said when asked what she is looking forward to this semester. August said.
Some ways Mrs. August shows her school spirit is by showing up everyday and to meet someone new and to help someone through something during the day.
“That’s all I do and sometimes you’ll see me and I will smile because I will be like oh you’re the woman who speaks today. You’re the woman who’s supposed to help today. That’s what I love about South because people are very caring here,” August said.
Some advice she would give to students that may be thinking about teaching or working in a school one day is to never go into teaching for money, because if you are trying to make a lot of money then you may want to look at different options.
“But I also have seven brothers and sisters, and I love my job and have always loved it. And I know that my brothers and sisters can’t say that about their jobs. And so I feel really lucky that I get to do something that I love,” August said.
Mrs. August has many memories from teaching at South. But she feels very lucky to still be teaching at South Salem high school.
“I feel very lucky that I was able to teach at the same school where my kids went. I also feel lucky that I’ve been here this long because I have so many kids that I teach.” August said.
