Schonauer new math coach
Tamara Schonauer left Cooper as a third-grade teacher and came back as a math coach. This is the first year that Cooper has had a fulltime math coach, and Schonauer is happy to be back.
She grew up in Ohio and started teaching in Cleveland in 1996. She taught music for four years and then stayed home with her own children for 10 years. When her husband came home with a job offer in Bentonville, she was ready for a change and agreed to move without seeing the area. Her oldest son, now in college, started at Cooper the year it opened and all three of her children attended.
She taught at Cooper for six years before moving into the coaching position. She describes the position as supporting students by supporting teachers.
“I’m a doo-wop girl,” she said, explaining that, while teachers are on the front line with students, she’s supporting them from the side. “Teachers are the masters.”
Sometimes teachers come to her with specific issues or sometimes they ask her for a challenge. Teachers are always open to new ideas, she said, and in her position as coach, she’s not assessing them, she’s just helping them. Often she’s in the classroom teaching beside them.
Her position also gives her the chance to see how the standards — the specific skills that teachers are required to cover each year — come together and build on each other. The “vertical alignment” of standards gives students a foundation that is built on as they progress. When a student is having trouble, she can sometimes find the place where they missed learning a specific math skill and fix it.
“I have a heart for kids who don’t like math,” she said. “I tell them to embrace the struggle.”
When she’s not in school, Schonauer is a groupie for her kids’ sports teams and loves do-it-yourself home improvement projects.