Kara Schupp was a committed science teacher at Parker for ten years. She started teaching seventh grade her first year and then switched to teaching in the upper school. She was an Upper School advisor, so she had the opportunity to get close with many of her students until she left Parker at the end of the 2021-2022 school year. Where is she now? Has she continued on the path of teaching? What impact did she have on Parker?
Schupp moved to London to pursue her dream of living abroad in a way that she was able to continue teaching. “I kind of had that moment of COVID crisis of, what am I doing with my life, and am I living my dream? What do I really want to be doing?” she said. “I knew at some point I wanted to live abroad and have a big adventure and live and teach somewhere else.”
She currently teaches Upper School science at the American School in London. “Coming to the American School in London was fulfilling a dream that I had always wanted, but doing it sooner than I actually thought was possible,” she said.
Schupp feels that her life has changed a lot in her move to London, in many ways. “What was the biggest adjustment I think was starting a new job. I’ve been teaching for over 20 years, so that part is not difficult, but learning a whole school system and figuring all that out but also simultaneously trying to help both of my kids settle into a new school and settle into a house was difficult,” she said.
Moving countries may have not been easy for her, however she loves London, especially the “energy and multicultural aspect of it all.” She talks about how amazing it is to live in such a diverse place. “There’s so many languages that I don’t even know what people are speaking. And they could all be my neighbors, and so I just love the hustle and bustle of the city,” Schupp said.
Schupp has had a definite impact on the Parker community, especially in the science department. Many of her students and colleagues remember her as a teacher and a friend.
“She was always the teacher going the extra mile and reinventing her curriculum and willing to try new things,” Upper School science teacher Bridget Lesinski said.
Science teacher Elizabeth Druger, a colleague and close friend of Schupp’s, agrees. “Her collaborative nature, her fun spirit and the fact that she is an all around amazing person were my favorite parts of working with her.” Druger said,. “She brought a lot of new creative ideas to the biology curriculum, such as starting the Advanced Topics in Biology class so that students could take the AP biology test.”
Schupp said that her top three things that she misses most about Parker are “definitely the people, the traditions, and then also just the trust that the school has in their teachers and the identity they have and helping them be the best progressive educators.”
According to Schupp, “It’s always the people that you miss the most. I made really dear friends when I was teaching there, but also I had just so much respect for my colleagues everywhere in the building and the whole community. Parker was truly a family,” she said.
The traditions were a big part of her time at Parker, and she loved how Parker worked as a progressive school.“I grew a lot as a teacher and I grew a lot as an educator and as a progressive educator and the way Parker supports their teachers is phenomenal,” she said.
