There are over 100 teachers employed at Wheeling Park High School. The common assumption regarding educators is that they spent their whole life in pursuit of being a high school teacher, but that is quickly disproven by Park’s CTE department.
Wheeling Park’s finance and accounting teacher, Mr. Micheals, entered the workforce with very different plans. “After finishing my Accounting degree at WVU, my first job was with the public accounting firm, Deloitte, one of the four largest firms in the world”.
Similarly, Wheeling Park’s design teacher, Ms. Marshall, began her adult life with a different idea in mind: “My first job out of college was designing apparel at Shirts N’ More.”
Mr. Michaels swiftly advanced in his career. “After Deloitte, I moved around a lot. I moved from healthcare to the State Government and eventually got a job working as a finance director for the Pittsburgh Steelers.”
Ms. Marshall progressed just as quickly: “I moved from designing apparel to marketing and designing Logos for Harvard and MIT. I’ve worked the full gamut in my industry, which I love.”
However, despite their prior success, both Mr. Michaels and Ms. Marshall were thrown curveballs that led them to choose to be educators at Park, from which they are both alums.
For example, Mr. Micheals explained, “After a startup I was a part of collapsed in the 2008 recession, I was the CFO for a construction company until they sold, a Chief Accounting Officer for an oil and gas company until they sold, and then a CFO for the Nutting Company in Wheeling. Eventually, I started to realize I wasn’t enjoying what I was doing anymore, and I wanted a change of pace.”
Ms. Marshall felt the same, and an unexpected opportunity arose for her: “When we were all working remotely in the pandemic, I kept in touch with the old design teacher here at Park, and he called me and said he was retiring and that I should apply. The stars aligned. I bought a house in Wheeling without even seeing it and started in January of 2021.”
Mr. Micheals reached a turning point of his own: “On a whim one day, I clicked on the Ohio County Schools website and looked at employment opportunities, and the first job that came up was a business teacher for Park’s accounting program, so I applied.”
Mr. Micheals shares why he decided to begin his career in education later in his life.”When I was a high schooler, I had no idea what I wanted to do, and I know a lot of students at Park are in the same spot I was. As a teacher, I hope I can show all of my students just how many options there are. The connection I have with my students is what I find fulfilling.
Ms. Marshall shares the same sentiment, “All the kids in my program are just so creative, and it’s fun to see everyone express themselves. It’s nice to share my experience and help students build their futures, whether they want to go into design or not.”
While they are not the most obvious, Wheeling Park thrives on the backs of our educators with career experience.
