LH Excellent Educator finds home in classroom
Rebecca Devereaux|Herald-Standard
Kathy Iacconi, Laurel Highlands High School mathematics teacher, lectures one of her trigonometry/pre-calculus classes.
Rebecca Devereaux|Herald-Standard
Laurel Highlands High School junior Casey Russell listens during a lecture in Kathy Iacconi’s mathematics class.
Rebecca Devereaux|Herald-Standard
Kathy Iacconi, a mathematics teacher at Laurel Highlands High School, is this month’s Herald-Standard Excellent Educator.
Rebecca Devereaux|Herald-Standard
Laurel Highlands High School junior Morgan Jalso works on solving a math problem during Kathy Iacconi’s trigonometry/pre-calculus class.
Rebecca Devereaux|Herald-Standard
College pennants given to Kathy Iacconi from former students decorate the back wall of her classroom. She displays the achievements to inspire current students.
Editor’s note: The following is part of a monthly series highlighting educators from Fayette County who have been chosen by officials in their school districts based on their work and dedication to the area of education.
The second-floor classroom at Laurel Highlands High School where mathematics teacher Kathy Iacconi spends the school day is less of a workplace and more of a second home.
In the front, clock faces show mathematical equations instead of the typical 1-12 numerals. In the back, pictures of former students fill a bulletin board.
It’s where she feels in her element as she delivers lectures on advanced mathematical concepts to sophomores and juniors with passion on a daily basis.
For the last 15 years, Iacconi has taught honors algebra II and honors trigonometry/pre-calculus courses. With energy, she gives the same lecture multiple times a day, working to instill critical thinking skills in her students.
For her commitment to education and enriching the lives of students, Iacconi, who is set to retire at the end of the school year after 35 years, was chosen by officials at Laurel Highlands as the district’s Herald-Standard Excellent Educator for September 2016.
Iacconi began her career in Brownsville, fresh from receiving a degree in secondary education mathematics from California University of Pennsylvania. After one year, she was hired by Laurel Highlands and has spent the majority of her career instructing college-bound students.
“When I was in high school, I loved algebra and trigonometry and pre-calculus, and I had a teacher that was outstanding, and I thought I would like to do what she does,” said Iacconi.
“So when I started to teach, I had a goal and it was a simple goal. It was that I could convey difficult mathematical concepts to my students in a way that they all understood.
“And when they left my room and they went home to hopefully do their homework, I wanted them to not be frustrated. I wanted them to be able to do the homework without feeling defeated because they understood the lesson in the classroom.”
That was the small goal Iacconi set for herself. There was also a larger one.
“My sister is a retired math teacher from Frazier High School. She’s a few years older than me, and she always wanted her students to see the beauty of mathematics, and she taught me that.
“So I wanted my students to see the beauty of mathematics, and I thought I could achieve that if I got them first to like math, if I got them to enjoy my math class, and if I got them to succeed and do well in my math class,” she said.
Iacconi typically teaches the same students in consecutive years as they move from one honors class to the next.
The first year she is the drill sergeant, all business in the classroom. The second year is more relaxed. Students have dubbed it “the fun year.”
“I love having them for two years in a row because the second year I get to know them a little bit better personally and, of course, I get to know them really well academically,” said Iacconi.
Teaching material that is sometimes complicated means keeping students involved during the entirety of the class period and bringing the material down to a level that students understand no matter the difficulty.
“I think my style of teaching is direct instruction with a lot of student involvement,” said Iacconi, who puts a lot of time into building lesson plans. “If I stood at the board and I just did example after example after example, I would be bored. So if I’m going to be bored, my students are going to be bored.
“So what I do is keep them very involved throughout the entire lesson, keep them engaged, and it does a couple things: it keeps them on their toes, it keeps them alert, and it lets me gauge if they’re grasping the concepts.”
To help her do this, Iacconi employs games that she has discovered or created over the years.
Some are holiday themed, one allows students to smack the whiteboard with flyswatters, another emulates a football field on a large board in the back of the classroom. But they all revolve around the concepts she teaches.
“There is nothing more fulfilling for a math classroom teacher than watching your students laugh (and) have fun while they’re actually doing your subject matter.
“When they come into my room and they know they’re going to play a game, many of them walk in and say, ‘I’ve been looking forward to this all day.’
“What more could I ask for as a teacher?”
Daily she has students perform “beautiful math dance moves,” where they stand and move their arms in the shape of graph functions that they’ve learned.
On the back wall of Iacconi’s classroom is her college wall, a bulletin board that she has curated since 2006 when a student gave her a picture of himself and a pennant from the college he chose to attend after graduation — Harvard University.
Since then, others have added to the board, with pennants from about 15 colleges around the country.
“The first student that gave me a pennant when he graduated from high school and a picture of himself is Seth Packrone. I thought, what am I going to do with this?
“Well, I thought, I’m going to hang it in my room so that my students can see that Ivy League schools are possible for a Laurel Highlands student.”
The wall is a way for Iacconi to remember her students and what they have achieved after leaving her home away from home.
“I’m very proud when I look at that. It makes me proud that I had just a small part of their educational journey.”