A former middle school Spanish teacher at Pattonville Heights, Jessica Dalton, begins a new journey as a high school social studies teacher this new school year.

Dalton has had experience with being at the high school by being the head field hockey coach for the past two years, and plans on helping her new freshmen students with guidance and instruction coming into high school, and continuing to better her varsity field hockey team.

“I think my favorite part of teaching is when my kids have a lightbulb moment and really understand something,” Dalton said. “Because I feel like they are really involved at that point.”

Dalton first found her love for teaching at a very young age, while playing school when she was a child. Then her passion developed as she went throughout high school and onto college, where she was faced with the decision between social work and teaching.

“I always kind of liked to play school when I was young but when I got older, I didn’t know if I wanted to do teaching or social work until I took a public school survey in class during my freshmen year of college. It was an intro type of survey and I decided I liked teaching more.”

After studying and getting her degree in education at Saint Louis University, she began student teaching in 2009 at Mehlville High School for one semester.

After student teaching, Dalton used a job finding website called MOREAP and came across Pattonville School District where she has taught as a Spanish teacher for the past five years. Dalton said she also landed her job at Pattonville Heights Middle School with the help of a strong recommendation letter from current college counselor of Pattonville High School, Ms. Julie Kampshroeder.

Dalton said that she was Kampshroeder’s former dog sitter for a long period of time, and received a better chance of getting her job at Heights due to her trustworthy service as a dog sitter with Kampshroeder’s pet.

So far, Dalton has loved getting to experience working her past five years as a teacher in the Pattonville School District and plans on continuing a long-term career as a teacher and a field hockey coach at the high school.

“ I love the Pattonville School District,” Dalton said. “I would have left a long time ago if I didn’t like it.”

Dalton also aspires — along with keeping her students interested and engaged — to continue to better the program for the varsity field hockey team over time and eventually become an athletic director.

“I’m just really excited that my field hockey team is varsity this year,” she said. “My plan is to build a good program for the team for about 15 years, and then become an athletic director.”