Sprouse adds Hogwarts magic to math classes

Many people in Willis Hall might be wondering what that smell is. It smells like pumpkin pie whenever people pass by room 13. 
Whether students have Jennifer Sprouse as a teacher or not, they can certainly smell her favorite fall scent and see the posters she hangs up in her classroom bringing a much-needed light and a fresh fun feeling to the Upper School. Perhaps all the decor and smells helped her feel more comfortable in her new situation.
“I’m always nervous on the first day of school,” Sprouse said. “Just because I don’t know my students. I don’t know how it’s gonna go.”    
Sprouse has a very vibrant personality that is shown in her room. She has many math posters in her room along with other things she likes like Harry Potter. Her favorite book is Prisoner of Azkaban, however her favorite movie is “Order of the Phoenix.” 
She grew up in south Alabama and attended a large high school that had around 2500 students, but the summer before her junior year she moved to little Christiansburg. 
“I remember the first football game, “ Sprouse said. “The football team ran out on the field and I was like, ‘Is the middle school doing an exhibition?’ But it turned out that it was the football team. I felt so bad because you know, I’m used to seeing people walking down on the field and seeing nothing but numbers. And their guys look like they were all ninth graders or something and I’m like ‘Where are your football players?’”
One thing most people don’t know about her is that she likes 3D printing. She has a few of her creations in her room, and she hopes to have a 3D printing class in the near future. 
This is her first year as a high school teacher. Before this, she had been teaching pre-algebra and geometry at Cave Spring Middle School. In the Upper School, she teaches Geometry, Algebra 2, and  AP Statistics. She has over 100 students, about half of the Willis Hall student body. She hasn’t taught Algebra 2 in a while and has never taught  AP Statistics. This doesn’t discourage her from trying her best. 
“I don’t necessarily have to be liked by every single person,” she said, “but I want to make a good impression. So where they’re not going home and saying let’s drop that class,
Her favorite type of math to teach is geometry. While she has always been good at math, she believes that her teacher’s support helped her love for the subject to flourish. In particular, her fourth-grade teacher gave her more advanced worksheets in class so she was never bored. 
“I’ve always kind of challenged myself to do math as fast as I could, “ Sprouse said. “I would make stupid mistakes. But math has always been the one thing that I don’t know. I get really, really, really weirdly nerdy about it.”
Sprouse went to Virginia Tech to get her bachelor’s then she got her master’s at Radford University. She has 15 years of experience teaching. She did take a six-year break when her children were born but jumped back into teaching after they were old enough.  
She expressed that she always wanted to be a high school teacher, however, she was stuck teaching middle school, which she still enjoyed. She felt that the Roanoke County school administration never took her concerns into consideration. Because she could handle the “bad kids” they kept on giving her more, so she felt that she never got the respect she deserved. 
She interviewed for the job in March and was offered the position of an upper school teacher on the spot. It was a hard decision for her to make, but ultimately she decided that it was for the best. 
“I started telling people and letting them know that I was not coming back around May,” Sprouse said “I was super excited about it.”
It’s expected that things will be different when moving to a new school. A few things are the grading system, the classes, and the schedule. However, for Sprouse, the biggest difference is the students’ behavior. 
“The biggest thing that I’ve noticed between the students here is there’s a level of respect and a level of pride in their school here,” Sprouse said. “Over there we were dealing with kids ripping the handles off of the sinks in the bathroom, and as soon as they got refurbished, they would rip them off again so we never could keep soap dispensers in the boys bathroom because they would just rip them off the wall.”
Her relationship with the other faculty members is different as well. Although she is friends with some of the faculty like Tiffany Sakaguchi because they both used to teach at Cave Spring with each other, most of the faculty is new to her.
“Everybody has been very warm and welcoming,” Sprouse said. “I’ve spent more time with the other teachers than I did in previous years because a lot of times we would be so overwhelmed. We would just kind of have lunch locked in our classroom with the door shut, trying to get something done. And here it’s like going outside and eating with the other teachers and just kind of chill. It’s just really nice.”
Although she no longer works at Cave Spring she still is an active member of their community. Her husband still works there and her children go there. She is in charge of the marching band costumes so she is required to be there for every home football game. This means she can also see some of her old students whom she still loves. However she is super excited for this new chapter of her life at North Cross.
“I get to see my former kids from there and they ask how it is at North Cross and I’m saying it’s amazing,” Sprouse said. “I love it.”
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