“I grew up, born and raised here,” Portage native Alyssa Tampier said. “I went to elementary school here, middle school, and high school. During my college experience, I stayed local.”
Tampier has always been a “Portage kid” at heart. Whether it was showing her school spirit, playing basketball for Portage High School until she graduated in 2013, or helping coach middle and high school basketball during her time at Purdue University Northwest, Tampier never wanted to drift far from her hometown.
“It really was my dream job to get back into Portage schools,” Tampier said.
And follow her dreams she did as Tampier became a kindergarten teacher at Myers Elementary School in 2017. Since then, she’s expanded her role outside of the classroom by advising Myers Elementary’s student council as well as running a youth basketball clinic throughout the school corporation.
“I have to figure out what tools I can give students in my toolbox to get them through the day,” Tampier said.
With her various responsibilities, Tampier makes sure she is always putting her students first. Her day starts early, preparing the classroom and lessons for the day before the children arrive. When the bell rings,, she helps her students get settled in and assists them in any way she can.
“I make sure all my children have coats and breakfast every morning,” she said.
Tampier said she teaches students whose families vary in socio-economic status, and she tries her best to fulfill any of her students’ needs -- from clothing to meals.
Since the state of Indiana is offering free breakfasts and lunches throughout school districts, Tampier said that’s what the morning usually consists of.
“The first 15 minutes of my day, I’m opening juice boxes, milk, breakfast sandwiches,” she laughed.
Next, Tampier gets her students’ brains activated by teaching her daily objectives to a classroom of various levels of experience before kindergarten. No matter what education students may have prior to entering her classroom, Tampier knows each of her students are stars that continue to shine.
“One of my students came into kindergarten not knowing any letters. She now knows all of her uppercase, lowercase, letters sounds and all of her numbers, which is a really big accomplishment for her,” Tampier said.
Tampier is impressed by the skills her students have picked up on during the first semester. With it only being November, Tampier has had multiple students reach their math goals of “counting to 100, writing to 100, counting their 10” and much more. She has also had multiple students “land on the moon,” which is her way of celebrating kids who have learned all of their sight words.
“Once students have ‘landed on the moon,’ we give them a round of applause, and then they get to join our book club,” she said.
Once class is dismissed, Tampier ends her workday with basketball practice or tutoring community students.
“If I don’t have basketball, I’ll tutor until about 8 p.m. and then wake up and do it all again the next day,” she said.
Tampier continues to support her students in her free time. Outside of the classroom, she visits students at their sports games, school events, or during other important milestones because she wants to provide students with an additional support system when they need it most.
“I just want my students to know I will always be their number one fan,” she said.
When she’s not cheering on her classroom, you can find Tampier hanging out with friends, playing board games, or making arts and crafts with her nieces and nephew.
Her biggest piece of advice: “Everything happens for a reason.”
“When something bad happens to me, I just think about ‘what’s the positive I can take from this?’” she said. “I just live by it.”