Murray, Conestoga- Some of you may know Nealy Freeman, an amazing teacher here at Conestoga. Some might say she’s a little hardcore, but it is her job to prepare students for high school. Ms. Freeman has both eighth and ninth-grade students. She teaches them eighth-grade English language arts and ninth-grade English. She has done an amazing job in her three years here at Conestoga, preparing students and helping them grow.

Some of her greatest accomplishments are improving her teaching skills with the Google tools, and she has gotten better at grading. She also gained a new field of experience by coaching junior high speech, which she had never done before. Her most memorable moment was when she got the news that school would not be resuming for the rest of the school year of 2020. Freeman said it was “Just having to adjust to that, and knowing I was losing time with that class.”

Freeman is sad to be leaving Conestoga. She said, “The reason why I’m sad is because in any new position you establish relationships, and I think here I established relationships really quickly with the staff members and the administration, and also students. It’s always tough to leave those relationships and it’s not always easy to make new ones.”

Freeman’s favorite part of Conestoga is the fact that she got almost all of her students for two years in a row, “I like the kids and I like that I have them for two years in a row because it’s fun to see them grow and mature into sort of adults.”

She is leaving Conestoga and moving to Waterloo, closer to home. Her current commute is over an hour a day to come to Conestoga, her new teaching position at Yutan is only a 10-minute drive. While Conestoga’s students, current and old ones, are sad to see her go, everyone is excited to see where her new path may take her.