Christy and I (Andrea) are long-time Kindergarten teachers in the West Vancouver School District. We met and became friends and teaching colleagues at Chartwell Elementary in February 1994. Four children (a daughter and son for me, two daughters for Christy) and nine years later, we decided to job-share at our current school, Ridgeview Elementary. We started off teaching half-time (three days one week, two days the next) in Grade One for three years. Then our beloved Kindergarten teachers decided to retire and we were asked to teach the Kindergarten for the upcoming school year.  We’ve never looked back.

Christy previously taught Kindergarten at Chartwell, but I’m actually a former Grade 3 teacher.  Christy bravely led me through the next five years of Kindergarten, each of us continuing to teach half-time, and in half-day Kindergarten. Those were the days of 40-44 students over the course of a day, and the same number of report cards and parent-teacher interviews!

Fast forward to 2011 and the Full Day Kindergarten Program at Ridgeview was implemented. For Christy and I, although we would have loved to continue job-sharing and teaching part-time, our own children were older now and we felt we should both increase our teaching time. We had enough enrolment for two Kindergarten classes. We decided to each take one classroom, and have continued to plan and team together to teach our students.  I moved back to our former Grade One classroom which we refurnished for Kindergarten, and Christy is teaching in the original Kindergarten classroom.  We look forward to joining forces again in a job-share some day.

We’re still teaching Kindergarten, now in our fifth year of the Full Day program, and still loving it.  Last December we launched our website, The Self-Regulated Teacher, for our Ridgeview Kindergarten parents.   Although the original intent of the website was to inform parents and increase communication between home and school, it’s been an amazing year of professional growth for the both of us as we reflect on our own teaching practise; read, review and research areas of interest for our blog posts; improve our use of digital literacy and learn about social media.

I’m in my 30th year as an elementary school teacher, and Christy is finishing her 22nd year.  As teachers in BC’s public education system, we have taught from Kindergarten to Grade Four, including Learning Assistance for both of us. We love each grade for what it is; it’s like loving every age your child is at. However, we’ve found over the years that it’s probably the most satisfying and rewarding of all grades because the growth in each child is so huge. Professionally, we think it’s incredible grounding for even an experienced teacher to see how learning in the school context begins. It’s a tremendous privilege to work with our littlest learners. and to build the foundation for learning over a lifetime.

PLEASE NOTE: The views and ideas expressed on this site are ours and do not necessarily reflect those of our employer. All mistakes are ours, too!