Ms. Tucker has always been a joy in her classrooms, whether she was teaching middle school or high school. At Casa, she teaches English 9 and English 11. “My dream job is to teach personal finance,” she said. She grew up in Virginia and went to Virginia Tech University and double majored in English and Secondary Education, which gave her the ability to teach 6th to 12th grade.
Tucker loves being in the classroom with her students, and her students feel the same. “She makes learning fun, and she lets us sit with our friends,” says Ava De Madeiros from Tucker’s third period. She loves a good laugh with her students, and teaching is the perfect job for that. “With all the other jobs I had, you just don’t laugh like you do with students,” she remarked. Tucker loves the creativity and freedom that comes with teaching. “Teaching is both my job and my hobby,” she said. As much as she likes being with her students and having a good laugh, she also wants to see them excel in their learning so they can use what they learned in the real world.
“I really just want to give them the core skills that are going to help them down the road.” Tucker said. Of course, even though she wishes she could help everyone, it is just impossible. “The emotional drain when you see students in need and not being able to provide everything that they need.”
Tucker has been teaching for 16 years now, and after settling here in Petaluma with her family ten years ago, she taught at the Santa Rosa Charter School For The Arts before coming to Casa. Before that, she also taught at Kalani High School in Hawaii for three years and Centreville High School in Virginia for 5 years. Tucker mentioned that Centreville may be her favorite school that she has taught at so far simply because she learned so much there.
Tucker loves to edit books for authors as well. “I love working with them to make their stuff better.” She edited a murder mystery series called The Hatbox Murders, written by Jennifer Berg.
Besides teaching, she has owned three businesses. In one of them, she helped small businesses in marketing, with fliers and posters and other things they needed to improve. In another business, Tucker worked with home schooled students, supporting their curriculum and preparing tests. In the third, she helped teachers and students during the pandemic with their distance learning.
Other than her work life, Tucker loves to spend time and hike with her family, and she has two very busy dogs to look after. Due to her connection with the Coast Guard, she moved around a lot from growing up in Virginia to moving to various places such as Hawaii.
Tucker loves to see people get better at what they do, whether it’s by working with her students or with an author of a book that she edited, she loves helping anyone who needs it.
