Originally published May 20, 2024.
In the science connector halls in classroom 3000 resides a science teacher, who has been at East for eight years. She is the lead Science Bound advisor, a mom, and soon to be Science Curriculum Coordinator, her name is Mrs. Dorr. Following this school year, she will leave East High School as she is promoted to Science Curriculum Coordinator at the district level. She leaves East as an impactful teacher and so much more.
Q: What got you into science? Dorr: “When I was younger, I didn’t appreciate history… I loved math, but I don’t think I could teach math. Math teachers, I think, have the hardest job… I do kind of like writing; I wasn’t bad at it… but it was my high school science teacher when I was in high school. She was very cool. She’s a cool person and she cared about me and provided different opportunities outside of school… She got me involved, and so, just like her interest in me, I mainly became interested in science and I just kind of understood it and liked it.”
Q: What got you into education? Dorr: “Oh my goodness, I did not know I wanted to be a teacher. I should have known from when I was very, very little… but I actually went to school for science as an undergrad, and I went and worked in the lab… and while I was in college, I worked at a daycare, which was madness as you can imagine. But then I went and worked in a lab and I found it very monotonous and boring. I didn’t like the day-to-day same thing. So, I thought, I really miss working with kids. So, I just had this pull towards maybe I would like teaching science because, you know, teaching can’t be boring or anything, and it’s definitely not, so I went back to school and did all of that.”
Q: Why teach high schoolers? Dorr: “I don’t know, to be honest. Actually, thinking back to it, I wanted to be able
to have real conversations and go into actual science concepts that I enjoyed in high school, and so I thought that would be kind of cool to work with big kids instead of little kids. I do love the little kids, but those teachers have to teach all the things and know all the things (elementary), but I just have to know science, that’s it.”
Q: What got you involved in Science Bound? Dorr: “So, a teacher needed somebody and she just kind of asked, and I said ‘sure, why not?’ When I was in high school, I was offered to be in Science Bound, but I didn’t really understand it. I didn’t have that family support that understood what Science Bound was and the opportunities it provided, like scholarships to college. I didn’t even know I was going to college until maybe a month before I graduated high school, to be honest, because I didn’t have that family support. It’s cool that it’s this opportunity where students can learn about science and do things, and I was like, ‘sure, why not?’ and ran with it.”
Q: What has been the biggest lesson you’ve learned during your time here at East High School? Dorr: “Your plans don’t always go as planned. There are always twists and turns, and if you think something’s going to go one way, it might completely go another way, and you just really have to be flexible and understand that you’re working with human beings, and sometimes that’s way more important than the science. Just being very aware that we’re here for students and not just for science or education, right? We’re working with human beings, so we need to be considerate of that. People would say I have a reputation for being a little bit harder or meaner, right? Like, people are scared of me. Then they get to know me, and hopefully, that changes. I come off as this hardhearted person. I guess being a mother and just being here has softened me. Becoming a mom has softened me, and learning that we’re all humans and we just express things differently. We’re humans, that’s the biggest thing. We’re just trying to do better and be better, to do good.”
Q: Why do you have pet roaches? Dorr: “A teacher who actually was here for a long time was retiring and wanted to pass them along, and I was offered to take him. That’s literally the story, yeah, they’re hand me downs and I’m doing a really bad job. It’s Job at keeping them alive. To be honest, I’m not sure how much longer the population is going to survive,”
Q: Are they going to get new owners
after you depart? Dorr: “Yes, Mrs. O. Hernandez says she wants to take them so they will be finding a new home. Hopefully she can bring them back. I’m pretty sure they just had babies. I don’t know if the babies are still alive,
though, to be honest, they had babies last year, too. My mom was watching the cockroaches while I was on a vacation, and she didn’t realize that the babies were at the bottom of the water container and picked it up and got scared and killed the babies. So, I’m blaming her for my population decrease.”
Q: What is the purpose of the lesson on octopuses hibernating in trees? Dorr: “Yeah, it’s a crazy lesson because obviously, octopuses don’t live in trees, and so I provided these resources, ‘in quotations,’ and just tried to emphasize how easy it is to convince people, like children or people in the world, of fake news essentially. Like, it’s not true. But I convinced you, and so being very aware of where our information is coming from. So, it was more of you need to know what your sources are when you’re writing about octopuses hibernating in trees, and you need to know that it’s not true, and so kind of just being aware of that, and I thought it was a fun way to introduce that conversation, like, ‘Hey, did you guys know that octopuses hibernate in trees?’ and then they’re like, ‘Wait, what?’
and then you have this whole conversation about it. So, it was just more of like a critical thinking, media literacy kind of thing.”
Q: So how did you get your new position as Science Curriculum Coordinator? Dorr: “Well, the previous person had to move because her family, her husband, I think got anew job in a different state. So, the position came open and it was a long term goal. I definitely did not expect to go for it so soon. When it came open previously, I had not considered it, but I was like ‘oh, I don’t want to leave the classroom.’ I was really torn about that and leaving students. But then after just having more experience in the classroom, I have felt more confident in my ability to lead and do things and I wanted to help all science classrooms that are not just mine. So, I was like, ‘why not, go for it.’ And I worked really closely with the previous person, so I knew that I had a mentor I could rely on and a lot of other people were supporting me and like, ‘oh, you would be good at this position’ And so, it just it opened and I’m like ‘why not?’ I had a lot of internal battles about leaving the classroom still, but I felt like I could make a bigger impact in. Jill Versteeg, the principal, encouraged me greatly and supported me and was all about it. She was a great support during that. I am super excited and super scared and nervous. It comes with a lot of new responsibilities and new learning and working with adults compared to students, which is going to be harder.”
Q: Well, is there anything else we’d like to add? Dorr: “I’ve loved my time at East and I’m still going to be around the hallways, hopefully in classrooms as much as possible, supporting teachers. Maybe one day I’ll back to teaching, we’ll see. Maybe elementary this time though, maybe I’ll go back and get my elementary license and work with babies. That’s all.”
Mrs. Dorr has made a significant impact on the students of East High School during her tenure. Her passion for science and dedication to her students has inspired many to pursue careers in the field. Mr. Mowitz, who works along side Mrs. Dorr as a Science Bound advisor, discuses how much her presents will be soon missed as she moves on to aid the rest of DMPS.
Q: Why are you devastated Mrs. Dorr is leaving East?
Mowitz: Because Mrs. Dorr does a really, really, really good job running Science Bound, we have by far the best Science Bound program, full stop. I would say in DMPS. We have the biggest, we have the most student success in my opinion. And I think I would say. At least 70 percent of that is a result of Mrs. Dorr doing a good job running the program. I don’t want to take away from Mr. Gladson and the other science bound advisors or the students. Our Science Bound program would not look the way that it does as far as success without Mrs. Dorr, What has she done in comparison to other Science Bound advisory not just within East but just in general. She holds students to a really really high expectations and does not budge on those, I think that’s the big thing. She does not put up with a lot of nonsense. High school students frequently tend towards nonsense. That will not help you be successful in Science Bound in college. So, she doesn’t put up with stuff and she has really, really high expectations and she works really hard to make sure that students meet those expectations. As far as like checking up on students, if their grades are not going well and working with them to make a plan, and having professionals come in for a career day that was not required by science bound at all. But that would help them with their career projects and finding activities and. All of the logistics that are required for Science Bound. The career day that we had this year, it was just a thing that Mrs. Dorr decided to do because she thought it was a good idea. It is a good idea. It was not a thing that was repaired by Science Bound, it was pretty much all people Mrs. Dorr knew. I’ll miss her leadership. She knows a very good sense of what particular levers to push and pull for what particular students to get them to do the things that they need to be doing.
As she moves into her new role as Science Curriculum Coordinator, she will continue to shape the science education landscape across the district. East High School will miss Mrs. Dorr, but her legacy will live on through the students whose lives she has touched.
