Meet Our Tutor Time Staff – Ms. Elizabeth, Team Lead

Meet Ms. Elizabeth, team lead at our Tutor Time location in Lacey, WA! She’s fluent in two languages (in addition to English) and has been at Tutor Time for more than a year. Read on to learn more about this fabulous teacher!

Tell us about your background!

I originally went to University of Massachusetts and went to school to be an Italian teacher. As I looked more into it, you can really only be an Italian teacher in New England. The language isn’t really taught much anywhere else in the country. So I switched gears and started working with people with disabilities to see if I wanted to do that, but then I moved out here to Washington and that’s where I applied for a teacher job. I found out I really wanted to work with children

How is it rewarding?

I love it. Every time you see the children smile, especially when you teach them something new and they realize that they’ve learned it, that smile on their face, it just makes me smile. They’re happy, they’re enjoying themselves and they’re accomplishing something. It’s just such a joy to be able to work with them and just teach them simple things.

In your opinion, why is early education important for kids today?

I think nowadays, you have to be so prepared by the time you get to kindergarten. Kindergarten isn’t your first education anymore. There’s so much to learn to make sure you’re on track. And with all the technology coming out, children are kind of forgetting how to just interact with other children. It’s just good for them to come in and play with blocks, learn to interact with each other, making sure that foundation is where it needs to be.

How do you ensure solid communication between yourself and the parents of your class?

Open communication and forming those relationships is really important because everything we do here is only half of what needs to be done. It needs to be continued at home. Open communication is really important, just that back and forth. We have implemented PreciouStatus so we can give parents instant updates throughout the day of how their children are doing.

What types of special events do you host for families?

We started to do Parents’ Night out where we open up the center at night and the kids can come and we do activities, and the parents can go off and have a night out. We put on movies for the children. It’s fun!

What are some of your favorite pastimes?

I love to go hiking and camping. Almost every weekend I try to get outdoors and do something.

Can you share a memorable moment you’ve had here at Tutor Time?

When I was working in the twos room, I was a new employee, I’d only been here a couple weeks. Our room is kind of shaped like a “U” and it’s cut in half, one side was my side and the other side was another teacher’s. There was one day all of a sudden we were just working together and then we had this really good bonding moment and I finally felt like I was fitting in and was doing the right thing. She was complementing me and it just made me feel like I’d found my place.