Poised at the whiteboard that covers one entire wall of her classroom, this teacher has a few problems to solve. Between her students, who range from Pre-Calculus to Advanced Placement Calculus, and being the sponsor for both Student Council and UIL Number Sense, she has her work cut out for her. However, she enjoys these commitments.

Mrs. Joan Speer, currently a teacher at Fredericksburg High School, has taught for 11 years. She has moved between many schools, but she believes her last two years at FHS have been her best. “I’ve taught in a bunch of school districts. This is my fifth school district, and in that short amount of time, y’all are by far the most amazing community, the most amazing kids, the most amazing family,” Speer said. ”Teaching is exhausting, and I’ve never once gotten up in the morning and went ‘Ugh I have to go to work today.’ It’s always ‘Hey I get to go to work today!’ It’s fabulous.”

Despite her current love for teaching, Mrs. Speer did not always plan to be in education.

“I was an investment banker for Merrill Lynch and Texas Commerce Bankers for twenty years,” Speer said.

After moving to a new neighborhood, she decided to take up substitute teaching to meet the families in the area and ended up really liking it. She has primarily taught calculus-based classes but has experience in a few other subjects. “

I’ve taught AP Statistics and AP Economics, those were fabulous classes to teach and then history and English,” Speer said. “Math is actually not my strong subject.”

Overall, Mrs. Speer has had content experience as an educator. Her proudest accomplishment as teacher has come from her students’ test scores.

“I’ve been blessed enough to have kids who have always passed the (AP Calculus) test, and always beat the national and Texas averages by a lot,” Speer said. “That’s what we work for and it makes all that worth it.”

She also finds it “fabulous” to watch her students develop into the young men and women they are now.