How do you get a pre-teen motivated to get to school on time?
Ask Barbara Percell-Vanterpool. As the tenured attendance teacher at
a South Bronx middle school, she tackles this question every day./p>
Percell-Vanterpool monitors her school’s rates of tardiness and
absenteeism, but her role goes far beyond a simple head count. In
addition to checking doctor’s notes and sending letters home to
parents, she also gets involved with her students on a personal level.
She coaches them in scheduling and time management, counsels
them through family troubles, and cheers them on along the road to
graduation. She might even tuck an alarm clock into the backpack of a
kid who may need some extra help.
“I’m a good-cop person,” she says. “I sit down with the students, and
we work out a plan for them to hit their attendance quota. It makes me
feel really great to help the kids move on to the next level.”
It’s a job that benefits from a good basic understanding of child
psychology—a course that Percell-Vanterpool excelled in during her
MS in Education program at Capella University.
“My course papers had everything to do with real-life scenarios—how
we would approach a certain situation or work with a student who
wasn’t responding well.”
As a teacher in a public school, Percell-Vanterpool knew that a master’s
degree would move her up the pay scale. But as a New Yorker, she
simply couldn’t battle the city’s ferocious traffic to commute to a
classroom. And having already worked hard for her bachelor’s and her
initial teaching license, she didn’t want to cover old ground again in a
new program. At Capella, her previous course work counted towards
her master’s, and she was able to finish the degree in one year (taking
multiple courses at a time, since health problems prevented her from
working full time that year).
With a master’s degree, Percell-Vanterpool enjoys tenure at Middle
School 22, which gives her a sense of security while she does the job
she loves.
“To anyone considering a degree at Capella, I would say, ‘Just do it!’
Just go, put yourself there, and think about the rewards in the end.”