This year at Wheat Ridge, many teachers are leaving. Beloved or not, keep that to yourself, but liked and not liked alike many are pursuing careers in other fields, or other schools, or not even working at all! Although sad, it has to happen and who knows, maybe the next teacher will be better. It’s the circle of teaching–some who are leaving are Mr. Watkins, Mr. Larson, Ms. Aschwanden, and Ms. Moss. And in this article, we are honoring Meaghan McDowell. 

McDowell is one of our beloved English teachers who is leaving the Farm this year. McDowell has said that since she has been able to bring back Speech and Debate and brought Red Rocks Concurrent Enrollment to our English department. 

Now, she states she is going to pursue her career at Ralston Valley High School to coach Speech and Debate there as well. 

She has been teaching for four years at Wheat Ridge, and during that time, she says that “All the people I met in the English department, it’s been so much fun to get to know the different teachers and all their stories, it’s really amazing to share. I’ve absolutely loved working with the Seniors, while I’ve gotten to teach the Senior Red Rocks class, they always make me laugh, they always change my perspective on something, and of course Speech and Debate … and I just love seeing how they’ve grown, and that they’re heading into the future with so many good things in store.”  

She loves teaching the seniors and teaching the senior Red Rocks class and enjoys seeing how her Speech and Debate team grows and has fun as a team, but as an opposite of that, she says that her least favorite memory is when she had to adapt and switch gears during covid. Something she learned is how she learned and grown as a person and as a teacher and what her values are as well as advocating for herself and her students. 

Her “senior” quote would be: “The best way to predict the future is to create it. – Abraham Lincoln”. 

She says that she always enjoys what fellow English teacher Kay  Landon is up to. “She’s always up to something; she always knows what’s going on, and I look forward to lunch every day to where I can hear about it,” Ms. McDowell said about our amazing newspaper teacher who, is too, leaving Wheat Ridge. 

No hard feelings for McDowell upon her departure from the Farm. She says that she thinks she was meant for Wheat Ridge–it made her learn how to be a mom, taught her how to value herself as a person, and gave her the flexibility to struggle and fail sometimes but also be able to lift herself up. She loves sophomores and seniors, but sophomores because everything is so new, and they don’t have to make any hard decisions just yet. 

We hope McDowell is just as successful at RV as she was here, and we hope she stays in touch!