Michelle Fraley -- Night School Head Teacher

I was born in Denver, Colorado and had something of an itinerant childhood, living also in Arizona, North Dakota and California, before my family finally settled in Eugene, Oregon.  It was in Eugene that I attended high school and learned that I was a true Northwesterner.   I fell in love with the mountains, forests, oceans, and, yes, even the weather. After high school I attended Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington (I lost track of the number of times I was asked, “Is that a real place?”) and spent my summers working at the YWCA’s Camp Westwind on the Oregon Coast.  Armed with my degree in psychology I worked for a while as a counselor at a residential treatment facility for adolescents in Oregon City. 

Eventually, I realized that counseling was not what I wanted to do with my life, but I did want to continue working with teenagers.  I returned to school, this time at the University of Oregon, and completed their teacher certification program in 1989.  It was also at the U of O that I met my husband, who was in the teacher certification program and finished at the same time I did.  Christopher and I were married in May 1990, and we both received job offers from the Lake Washington School District that year.  In August of 1990 we moved to Redmond, where I went to work teaching math at Rose Hill Junior High. 

At the end of my sixth year at Rose Hill Junior High, I gave birth to my first child.  I wanted to stay home with my baby, but I also wanted to keep teaching.  It was at that time I found out about BEST High School and the existence of BEST Night School.  As luck would have it, there was an opening for a math/science teacher at night, and I got the job.  I have been teaching math and science at BEST Night School since 1996, and have been Head Teacher since 1998.  My husband still works for the Lake Washington School District as well, and we live in Sammamish with our two beautiful daughters.

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