Sydney Toups teaches second grade at Union Park School. She teaches the English side of a Spanish Immersion class for two groups of students, instructing them in reading, writing and social studies.

This fall marks her 10th year in the Deer Valley School District and her fifth year teaching second grade Spanish Immersion. In addition to her role as a teacher, Toups also coaches the boys and girls volleyball teams at Union Park.

Toups’ family moved to Arizona from Ohio when she was very young. They were seeking the warm weather when they moved west, she explains. “My mom got tired of the snow.”

She attended Deer Valley schools starting in fifth grade. When she graduated from Boulder Creek High School, Toups got her first job as an aide in a kindergarten classroom. She then worked in a preschool and discovered that she wanted to teach. “I realized I really liked working with the kids,” Toups says, “but I didn’t want to teach preschool forever.”

Toups graduated from ASU with a degree in Early Childhood and Early Childhood Special Education. She says when she was a young student she did not really like school. That is one reason why “when I’m at work, I make sure (students) really enjoy being there,” says Toups. She notes that teaching is something that she really enjoys!

“I try to preach a lot of positivity,” says Toups. She hopes her students learn that “they can handle any challenge that they come across as long as they have a positive mindset.”

When Toups is not in the classroom, she likes spending time with her husband and her two dogs, enjoying the outdoors, and reading historical fiction. She says she appreciates the creativity of the genre while she also learns something. She hopes to do some traveling this summer, either back to Ohio or around Arizona.