By Jennifer Adema, ICS director of admissions
Heather Harmon is our beloved middle school math teacher. Let’s get to know her better! The Harmons moved to Salt Lake City from Houston, Texas in July of 2015. They were lured to the mountains because of a job opportunity for Bill, Heather’s husband. They moved here with their three kids: Abby, Ethan, and Lauren.
The Harmon kids had been ICS Lions for three years when a job opportunity came up that Heather describes as her “dream job.” ICS was hiring for a middle school math and science teacher. She applied, interviewed, and was so excited to receive the job offer! There was some trepidation in her acceptance as she had been out of the classroom for 10 years, but it did not take long for Heather to find her stride and confidently teach her students!
Heather’s favorite part of her classroom is connecting with the students. It can be hard to teach math, because math is not everyone’s favorite subject, but her students would agree that Heather approaches learning in a way that is captivating and she sets goals that are readily attainable.
Heather loves being a part of the middle school team. She often corroborates with Mr. Hobbs and Mrs. Smith to handle classroom management issues as well as cross-curricular goals.
Heather’s reputation among her colleagues is that she has a great rapport with middle school kids. She is funny, caring, and kind. Of course as a math teacher, it helps that she thinks math is totally cool and loves teaching it! She truly invests in her students in and out of the classroom. She’s always available for conversations, speaking into not just academic concerns for a student but social and emotional health as well.
Heather jumped in as an early adopter of TfT and initiated a unique FLEx project (see story titled, “Teaching for Transformation”) which put several students in front of the ICS School Board sharing their findings. She’s known as being a team player who is professional, prepared, and organized in all that she’s asked to do! Heather has proved herself a great asset not only to the middle school students but to all of ICS.
When Heather is not solving math problems with middle schoolers, she enjoys being outside running or skiing. Heather also has two dogs, Hunter and JJ.