WCS Mother-Daughter Teaching Duo to Present in L.A.

Published February 22, 2017

WCS teachers Wendy and Megan Comer have been helping shape young minds in Williamson County for a combined 17 years, but soon they’ll have a chance to share their knowledge with educators from all over the country.

The mother-daughter teaching duo was recently selected to present at the 2017 National Science Teacher Association (NSTA) National Conference in Los Angeles and will be heading out west in March to talk to other teachers about how they approach science in today’s 21st Century Classroom.

While anyone who knows Wendy, a 13-year Crockett Elementary teaching veteran and former WCS substitute teacher, or Megan, a fourth-year teacher at Page High, may not be surprised to hear the two were selected for this opportunity, it caught the two women off guard.

“I thought we might as well send in a proposal,'” Wendy said. “I didn’t think we would get accepted, but we just went ahead and did it. We were supposed to hear by the end of October. Nothing. November, Nothing. Then, on December 16, we got the confirmation.”

Such big news called for a special phone call.

“I called her during class, which I never do,” Wendy said. “She picks up and just starts screaming and I got to tell her we had been selected.”

It was a big moment for Megan, who has not only taught at Page High for the past four years, but spent her entire elementary, middle and high school years in Williamson County going from Crockett Elementary to Woodland Middle and then graduating from Ravenwood High.

The excitement was quickly replaced by a bit of stress and anxiety, but their ingenuity and teaching brains took over.

“After we found out, it turned out they needed all this information by December 30” Megan said. “So we had to stop everything and get it done right now. The deadline was at midnight and we submitted it at like 5 o’clock.”

Now, with the proposal submitted and accepted, the Comers are working on their presentation during their limited spare time. Their busy teaching schedules don’t afford them a ton of time to get together and plan, but they’ve turned a weekly tradition into their planning period.

“Every Saturday we go grocery shopping and that’s normally when we talk about all our ideas,” Megan said.

The two don’t have much longer to prepare.

The conference takes place at the Los Angeles Convention Center the week after Spring Break from March 30 until April 2.