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Emily
Swoboda
English I Honors
Quincy Scott
English II Honors
Ken
Billings
English III Advanced Placement
Victoria
McCormick
English IV Advanced Placement
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While she isn't a Texan by birth, Mrs. Swoboda has lived in Texas
most
of her life. She is a two-time graduate of Texas A&M University
in
College Station, Texas. She earned a B.A. in English and an M.Ed.
in
Curriculum and Instruction. Mrs. Swoboda began teaching at Waller
High
School, located just outside of Houston, as she completed her graduate
studies at A&M. After teaching in Waller, she moved to San
Antonio where
she taught in Judson ISD. Now, Mrs. Swoboda is very excited and
privileged to be a part of the Communications Arts High School faculty.
This year, she is the class sponsor for the Junior Class.
In her spare time, Mrs.
Swoboda enjoys spending time with her husband,
taking photographs, quilting, reading, visiting with family
(including
her nieces and nephew), organizing anything in sight, and
relaxing. Some
of her current favorite books are: Eats, Shoots & Leaves, Shakespeare
Bats Cleanup, Fahrenheit 451, and To Kill a
Mockingbird. Some
of her
favorite authors are Willa Cather, Sandra Cisneros, Sue Monk
Kidd, and
William Shakespeare.
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A
native of San Antonio, Quincy Scott began teaching English at
Southwest High School after graduating from Southwest Texas State
University. While at Southwest High, Quincy taught several levels
of English and worked with the swimming, softball and basketball
programs. In 1996 he coached the Freshmen boys basketball team
and assisted the Junior Varsity and Varsity boys basketball teams. Quincy
was hired on at Keystone School in 1998 as an English teacher
and coach. During his stay at Keystone, Quincy taught Sophomore
and Freshman English. He also coached middle school softball
and boys' soccer and junior varsity boys' basketball.
2006-07
is Quincy's fifteenth year as a teacher. In addition to his
work with young people, Mr. Scott enjoys the Beatles, art museums,
thoughtful movies, Chinese food, and his canine companions Margo
and Lucy.
Quincy
believes that teaching is an extension of parenting. He sees
his profession as a partnership with the parent to nurture the
child into a thoughtful adult, a responsible citizen, an independent
thinker and a lifelong learner.
Some
Quincy Scott favorites: Meditations of Marcus Aurelius,
Akira Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai, anything sung by Billie
Holiday, dim sum, the poems of Stephen Crane, Carol Reed's The
Third Man, The Spurs, Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby,
Krazy Kat, Radiohead, and dogs.
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Ken Billings,
husband of one and father of three, was born in California in
1973; graduated from UTSA with a B.A
in History in 1995; started teaching at John Jay High school in
1997; married in 2000; received his M.A. in English from UTSA in
2003; became an adjunct professor at Wayland Baptist University
in 2004; arrived at Comm Arts in 2007: his three sons were born
in 2001, 2003, and 2005—those are the dates. However, there
must be more to a person than a string of years. For Ken Billings,
these are the things that matter most: his faith in God; his love
for his wife, children, and the rest of his extended family; his
addiction to reading (“I am constantly reading: theology,
literature, history, espn.com”); his devotion to the Spurs
(“Go, Spurs, Go!”); his passion for politics (“W!”);
and his dedication to improving as a teacher.
“Let all things be done decently and in order”:
in Ken Billings’s life, this idea must become part of his
daily agenda. Between juggling family life, high school teaching,
college teaching, and church activities, very little time remains
for “free time.” But, in that time that exists that
some call “free,” Ken enjoys movies and a few television
shows (“Lost”); taking long walks on the beach (“No,
wait, there is no beach where I live, scratch that!”);
and…well, there is nothing much after that. Playing with
his boys and enjoying time with his wife, pretty much sums up
the week.
As a teacher, Ken believes that if a teacher truly, really,
deeply loves what he or she teaches, and that love radiates and
flows out of every lecture, lesson, and assignment, then the
students will notice, and hopefully they will be able to catch
some of that passion, grasp some of the love, and take hold of
some of the lessons about literature and writing and grow as
a student, citizen, and person.
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Victoria
McCormick
English IV Advanced Placement
Winner
of the 2007 Sue German Award at the New Jersey Writing Project
Convention for excellence in education
e-mail
webpage
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Victoria
McCormick started out wanting to be a writer and ended up a teacher
of writing, proving that those who can both do and teach. She has
been teaching for 29 years and has been in the Northside School
District for 23 years, 16 at John Jay High School and 7 at Health
Careers High School before moving to Communication Arts in August
of 2005. She was the English department coordinator at both Jay
and HCHS, is a New Jersey Writing Project in Texas trainer, and
for several years was a reader for the AP Language and Composition
Test. In 2002-2003, Mrs. McCormick was awarded the Trinity Prize
for Excellence in Teaching. She has also been an officer in TCTE/LA,
the state professional organizations for English and language arts
teachers, and SAACTE, the San Antonio affiliate for TCTE/LA.
Mrs. McCormick was born
in El Paso, Texas, but spent most of her life living in various
places along the West Coast where her sailor father was stationed
by the U.S. Navy. A graduate of Texas Tech University, she received her master’s degree
in English from the University of Texas at San Antonio. Her writing has been
published in UTSA’s literary magazine Cactus Alley and one of her poems
placed first in the Poets on the River Contest.
Although reading and
writing are Mrs. McCormick’s main interests, she also
enjoys traveling, hiking, and camping with her husband, Larry.
Together they have visited just about every national park west
and/or north of Texas, including Big Bend, Pikes Peak, Yellowstone
Park, and Mt. Rushmore. However, the highlight of their camping
adventures has been their trip to Guadalupe State Park where
they climbed the strenuous switchbacks up to Guadalupe Peak,
the highest spot in the state of Texas. She and her husband
have five children, ranging in age from 35 to 17, and she hopes
one day to share her love of the outdoors with her seven grandchildren.
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