Mother and Daughter Are Both New Teachers

Pam and Katie Jo Mayfield

In the Saturday, Aug. 17 issue of the Winston-Salem Journal, reporter Arika Herron writes about a mother and daughter who are both new teachers this year. Here is an excerpt from the story:

When school starts Aug. 26, there will be more than 200 new faces at the front of classrooms throughout the district.

Two hundred and two teachers, new to the district, completed orientation this week and will welcome students on the first day.

And when they write their names on the chalkboard for students that first day, two of those teachers will write the same thing: Mayfield. What set the two first-year teachers apart are the letter ‘R’ and about 30 years.

Pam and Katie Jo Mayfield — Mrs. Mayfield and Miss Mayfield, respectively — are more than just two new teachers with a last name in common. They’re mother and daughter who have taken different routes following their passion for teaching, but ended up in the same place — the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County school system.

Katie Jo, 21, a Mount Tabor High School graduate, took the more direct path. Though she entered Elon University as a political science major, she changed to English with a focus on education after her first year. It wasn’t easy, she said, to fit in all the credits needed for her new major in three years, but she did it and graduated this spring.

The plan wasn’t necessarily to return to the school system from which she graduated. Katie Jo said she sent resumes all over the state, but when it came down to it Winston-Salem is home, and it’s made the transition much easier.

“It just worked out that way,” she said. “There’s a degree of wanting to give back. I had such a good experience (in the district).”

For Pam, the route to finally fulfilling her dream of being a teacher — one she’s harbored since grade school — was more circuitous.

“I’m a late bloomer,” she said, joking.

For the full story, go to Winston-Salem Journal