Math and engineering teacher Karen Stohlmann takes a few weeks of every summer to travel throughout the United States to teach other teachers how to be great engineering teachers. She said she travels to one or two sessions every summer, and spends two weeks certifying groups of other teachers in the project Lead the Way engineering curriculum. 

Stohlmann said she loved the hands-on feel of the curriculum, and wanted to share it with teachers to share with students. She said she applied and was chosen to apprentice for one year; after the apprenticeship, she became a master teacher. 13 years later, she is still teaching.  

In her 13 years as a master teacher, project Lead the Way has taken Stohlmann to places, including South Carolina, California, Texas, Tennessee, and Maryland.
Stohlmann said the work schedule is strenuous, with teachers and teacher-students often clocking in 18 hour weekdays. 

“We teach for about a 9 hour day, and then we give the students an hour or two off, and then we get back together to help them in the evening.”

Matt Shulman, a social studies teacher at BVNW, said he spends his Sunday mornings preparing meals for his small catering company. In the evenings, you can find him delivering his meals to a small community of friends, family, BVNW staff, and strangers who found his social media pages.

With a menu that changes every week, people can choose from an assortment of breakfast, entrees, snacks, and whole meal plans.  Shulman said switching the menu out weekly keeps him busy and enthusiastic to cook.

 “I try and switch [the menu] out so people don’t get bored with it, so I don’t get bored with it,” Shulman said. “It’s updated every Monday, I’ll put it on Instagram and Facebook.” 

Shulman started this company in mid-August, and in the three weeks since he began this business, he has made about $1,000. He credits quarantine and summer for giving him extra time to focus on his love of cooking for others.

“My mom was a caterer, so it just was something that I liked to do when I was younger,” Shulman said. “I always liked to cook for big amounts of people and large crowds and events and stuff like that.” 

Shulman spends Sunday mornings cooking for his customers, and he delivers the meals and snacks directly to customers’ houses on Sunday evenings for the week ahead. 

Although Shulman has expressed a love for the small company, he said he doesn’t plan to leave Northwest to cater.

“I like what I do a lot, I like the kids I work with, I love to coach, and so it would take a whole lot to get me to leave what I’m doing at Northwest,” Shulman said.

You can find his catering page at @shulmancreations on both Facebook and Instagram.

Like Shulman, math teacher Tim Davis has a side-job in the culinary world. He works part time in a restaurant in his neighborhood, waiting tables. Davis will be starting his third year at this specific restaurant, and his 20th year as a waiter.

During the school year, Davis will pick up 1-2 shifts a week. During the summer, he will pick up other waiters dropped shifts in addition to the 1-2 base shifts. 

Davis said that he keeps this job to offset the cost of getting his masters degree, and to have some supplement money. 

“The easier thing to do would be to not have a second job, but this is probably the easiest second job I could have, because you can make money in a very short time. I’ve been doing this for almost 20 years, so I can practically do it in my sleep,” Davis said. 

The outbreak of Covid-19 had increased the need for VirtualEd classes within the Blue Valley District, and BVNW ELA teachers Bill Smithyman and Kyle Farrington agreed to spend late June to late July co-crafting the online curriculum for ELA 10 for extra compensation. 

“There is a little bit of question over how true to the written curriculum teachers might be, but they at least have that as a backup,” Smithyman said.  “If somebody walked into school on their first day of their contract in August, and said ‘uh-oh, what am I teaching for the online class’ then they would have a curriculum in the can that they can use.” 

Smithyman treated this assignment as a full-time job, meeting to discuss with Farrington one or two days a week, and spending the other three or four days co-crafting the curriculum at his home.