Frazier starts as fifth grade teacher at St. Jude's

A Havreite is a new St. Jude Thaddeus School fifth grade teacher.

"I feel like I've worked with kids for so long that, as a first year teacher, I'm excited to finally put all of everything I've practiced into actually doing with my own set of students," Amber Frazier said. "I really believe you can make an impact on children."

She said she looks forward to everything in being a teacher, the relationships and the experience of it.

If St. Jude's goes into the school using remote learning, she said, she can use Zoom, Class Dojo, Seesaw and other technology program platforms.

"We have to be realistic. That it's a tough way for some students to learn, and it's a lot when some parents, there are a lot of people still working, so for us we're up to the challenge no matter what the challenge may be," she said. "I feel grateful with our school because we do have smaller numbers that we can successfully keep them social-distanced and allow them back to the classroom as well."

Before teaching, she said, she started out working at a day care for three years that got her into teaching because she taught the 4- and 5-yea-olds their Spanish colors and Spanish names for things and other things.

When she got older she wanted to work with children, she said.

She said it became so fun for her that she registered to be a substitute teacher for Havre Public Schools in 2012.

"That continued on for me and that made me want to pursue actually going to school to get my teaching degree and I had a 1-year-old daughter with me at the time, and I knew this is what I wanted to do and here I am four-and-half years later," Frazier said. "... I'm finally where I want to be. I have children, I also worked at Quality Life Concepts."

She said one of her favorite experiences is working with children who have autism or developmental delays because "they teach you to teach them such different fun ways."

She received her bachelor's degree in elementary education with a minor in art from Montana State University-Northern, she said.

St. Jude Thaddeus School, she said, is where she student taught.

"At first I was really apprehensive, and once I was in there you could not get me out of there," Frazier said. "I started substituting for them and then the COVID-19 closed all the schools down. ... It was like they just took the fun away from everyone and we were just done."

The first day at St. Jude's Wednesday, Aug. 19.

"I just want the parents and the students to know that me and every other teacher that has been teaching - this is my first year teaching all the other teachers have been teaching forever - the school is still the place where we want to be and it's really hard on us to do it from home," she said. "We want them back in the classroom, we want them healthy and we want to be able to do this safely for all of us, but we also don't want the focus to be COVID-19 when they come back to school. We want the focus to be school and it will always be their education that's number one priority for us."