Sydney Austin is a new face around the East. She is one of the campus supervisors that has been hired. These also aren’t her first times walking around the halls of East, as Austin went to East and graduated in 2014. She never thought she would be working in the East but the connections and opportunities have proved to her different.

After Austin graduated in 2014, she took a position at a daycare as a preschool teacher. She worked as one through her year off from school and then went to college. Austin received her associate’s degree in Child Development. She worked as a full-time preschool teacher and then after.

During Austin’s time at East as a student, she enjoyed hanging out with friends and going to football games and other activities. She even joined the choir for a bit after all her friends convinced her, but it didn’t stick for long. The teacher that left the biggest mark was Laura Graulty and her student teacher and now Lincoln East teacher, Anne Daly.
“I always loved the school and thought it was a good environment and it still is,” Austin said.

Austin originally thought that teaching was always going to be her career path. Now as Campus Supervisor, she is teaching but in a whole new way. With not graduating too long ago, Austin still can relate with the students around her and many students that she interacts with have that same realization. She has built relationships with the students around her which she cherishes the most. Now going into her second semester as Campus Supervisor she has enjoyed seeing the positive spin that some of the students have taken.

“Last semester could have been the worst for them and they took that Christmas Break, came back, and shifted their decisions,” Austin said. “They aren’t going to be perfect but it is still nice to see that something somebody said clearly made a difference and they are going to have a better future.”

As Campus Supervisor, her main job is to escort students from one place to another like the office nurse. etcetera. They often do bathroom checks to make sure that everyone is safe. That is the supervisor’s main priority: make sure everyone is safe. With the addition of Austin, there has been a release of pressure on Abby Hall. Prior, Hall was the only supervisor they could depend on for all female calls including searches or bathroom checks. Hall had been known for a while as the only female campus supervisor, but with Austin, there is less ground for one person to cover.

“A lot of people don’t think that females can do this kind of job,” Austin said. “There is a stigma and we are breaking it.”

Austin values the connections that have come from this job and the marks she will leave as a student graduate. If she could encourage something more than anything, it is to not wait to go to college after high school. Keep continuing because the longer the wait the harder it will be.

“Do it right away, get it out of the way,” Austin said. “It can be satisfying to know you are done with high school but it makes it harder when you go to college. You don’t necessarily need to know exactly what you want to do but try some classes.”