Congratulations to both of these outstanding professionals for their service to our school!
Words from Mrs. Kersey:
Jeff Cohen - He is probably the best math teacher in our school and one of the best teachers period. He always makes every decision through the filter of “What is best for my students?” He makes himself available to current and former students to help them with all levels of math. He uses songs and rhymes and other creative ways to help his students remember math skills that could otherwise be boring “rote” memorization. Although teaching an RTI math class is not his favorite way to spend Anchor Time, he is one of the very best. If he is given a class in the upper percentile levels or lower percentile levels, his students most often test out before the semester is complete. He has a way of making intimidating subjects manageable for the mathematically challenged while also challenging the mathematically gifted. Jeff is always learning new and better ways to reach his students. He is currently enrolled in the Tag co-hort here at AHS. When he isn’t in his classroom, you can often find Jeff supporting his students at sporting events, music events, etc. I think he is involved in more ways than I have listed here. I just know that I wish he had been my math teacher in 9th grade (or any grade… even now for that matter) and could only dream of having him teach my own children (if I had any).
Jeff Macko—the man everyone calls when something doesn’t work. Jeff works tirelessly to help the teachers of this building, whether it is with a computer issue or helping to fix a printer. In addition, this year he has overseen a shift to computer-based testing, working many long hours over the summer to ensure that our summer school students were able to complete their courses, then helping to reconfigure every lab in the building so it would be ready for teachers’ return. He has also shepherded a recent refresh of the desktop computers in the building (last year), now teacher laptops (this year), and the installation of our interactive projectors! Yet when he’s not making sure the school doesn’t fall into a wireless internet black hole, he also has time to collaborate with individual teachers on projects to help students, such as helping our journalism program scrape together enough technology to create a dedicated lab space for our newspaper, yearbook, and literary magazine students so that they could continue to grow their publications.
