Written by the De Equitibus Staff

By Francesca De Luca

This year we have four new teachers, plus one who started before the end of last school year. One is the French teacher, Madame Pardini. She taught here six years ago and now she is back! The reason why she is back is because of the positive experience she had six years ago so she wanted to come back home. She decided to teach French because when she was 10 years old she found her mother’s French book and asked what it was. Her mother explained to her that it was a foreign language, and when she asked her mother to speak it she was so intrigued by it that her father bought her a record so she could listen to it. Before coming back to TPA she was teaching at Chandler Preparatory Academy. During this year she had some boys after school ask her if she needed help with her bags and some of the faculty asked her the same thing. She had the same experience six years ago with the kind students and kind faculty. She is glad to be at TPA and impressed with the students.

By Tiffanie Cappello Lee

Mrs. Doshi is among the many talented new teachers at TPA. Before she came to TPA, Mrs. Doshi taught at Chandler Prep for seven years, teaching both seventh and eighth grade. A main reason why she decided to come to TPA was because “I’ve always admired the TPA family… and thought it would be a great place to work because the philosophy of the school coincides with mine.” When asked about her experience thus far, she stated that “I felt at home from day one … I just feel like I belong here.”

By Angelo De Luca

One of the new teachers at TPA who came in a little later last year to substitute in for the absence of another teacher was Mr. Granville. Mr. Granville worked for a law firm in Phoenix and was called in to teach after previously submitting a resume. Mr. Granville teaches eighth and 10th grade American History. He became a teacher because he not only enjoys teaching in general,  he enjoys “making connections between things that seem to have no connection at all.” His enthusiasm and new ideas for teaching the subject make the subject that much more enjoyable to learn about.

By Sarah Buchert

With the departure of Ms. Pittman, TPA needed a new drama teacher. Enter Mr. Sanderson. He went to college in Chicago and has done over 30 plays such as The Importance of Being Ernest and The Light in the Piazza. He worked with special-ed kids during the day, and at night taught and directed at small theaters. He loves drama and believes that TPA has good, enthusiastic, smart kids. His goal is to get theater kids, and kids who haven’t done theater before, more involved and interested in it. He just got married two weeks ago. He moved to Arizona to be closer to his family and to start his own. He plans on doing the Pirates of Penzance, musicals, and a lot of things that could serve TPA. He might do the musical version of The Secret Garden and a family friendly play, Camelot. With the six graders he plans on doing a one-act version of Waiting for Godot. When he was asked why he chose drama as a career he responded: “I teach drama because theatre is my favorite thing in the world, and I want to share my love and knowledge of it with as many people as possible.”

By Frances Caldwell

Mr. LeBeau formerly attended Tempe Preparatory Academy as a student, and now he has come back to teach at TPA. He said, “I am very excited to be back at TPA, and to meet all the sixth graders.” “I feel that math displays a certain level of academic thinking that promotes learning in other subjects.” He really likes the sense of community that is shared among administration, faculty, staff, parents, and the students here at TPA. He completed his Bachelor’s degree at Arizona State University, before returning to TPA.