This year, East welcomed special education teacher Chantel Carranza. She teaches Algebra One at STCE. Carranza grew up in the district—she is an alumna of both Wredling and East. She was involved in tennis and soccer when she was a student here. After high school, Carranza attended Grand Valley State University, where she played collegiate soccer while earning a double major in special education and general education with a minor in Spanish. This is her second year teaching after teaching at Thompson last year. She also coaches JV2 girls and boys soccer here at East.
Carranza’s favorite part of the job is the relationships she builds with her students by connecting with them. She decided to go into this field because of her love for working with students with disabilities: “In high school, I actually worked in Special Olympics, and that’s why I found a love for working with students with special needs. I’ve just always felt like I could connect with kids, and I wanted to make a difference and be someone who could support them,” she said. Carranza went on to discuss how she knows that not everyone has all the support and resources at home to be successful, so she wanted to be that support.
The everyday interactions with students during passing periods or downtime in class is another aspect that she enjoys about her job: “I like being able to check in and see how their weekend went, or if anything new is happening in their life. I think that not only builds trust with each other, but it also allows me to continue to build my relationship with the kids.”
Carranza’s teaching philosophy involves making students feel wanted and welcomed in the classroom so they can learn and be successful: “That’s definitely something I work on at the beginning of the year—making sure I’m building those connections, and that they know that I’m someone they can count on. I think that helps later on in the school year when establishing classroom norms and procedures—it helps us have a mutual understanding of our roles in the classroom.”
“The teachers I remember the most are the ones that I had a great relationship with. I don’t really remember the content they were teaching me, but just that feeling [of being welcomed], I have a few of those teachers that really made me want to be a teacher, because I wanted to get students [to have] that same feeling. It’s not necessarily what they teach you, but how they make you feel that makes you really want to learn in school.” Carranza looks forward to her future years as a teacher here at East.
