By being able to see each other more often every day, teachers and their children who go to school together build unique bonds and mutually benefit from each other’s presence.
For parent and teacher Mike Feliciani, one of the best parts about going to school with his daughter are the car rides.
“I think the car rides are cool because we get a little bit of time to talk every day, and we can catch up to see what’s going on,” Feliciani said.
Feliciani’s daughter, Izzy, agrees that the rides are one nice thing about having her dad in school with her.
“I like that I always have a ride to and from school,” Izzy said.
Math teacher Tara Halikiopoulos says that she appreciates being able to see who her son, Isaac, is friends with.
“I love the fact that I’m able to see who his friends are when he comes into my room,” Halikiopoulos said.
According to Isaac, he likes having his mom in school with him because he can always go to her if he has any questions about math.
“If I have a question about something with math, I don’t have to call her or anything, I can just go to her room,” Isaac said.
Halikiopoulos says that she feels her connections in the school make Isaac want to be the best he can be, even though she says he wants to succeed.
“I feel like Isaac knew that if he messed up it would be very easy for another teacher to just come up and say something to me,” Halikiopoulos said. “However, I’m lucky that Isaac innately wants to succeed.”
According to Izzy, another benefit of having her father in school with her is that she is able to leave her belongings in his classroom.
“His classroom is like my own locker,” Izzy said. “So basically any time I have extra stuff I can always put it in there.”
Additional benefits to having a parent as a teacher include: having someone to sign papers last minute, hand out late passes and provide information regarding the school, Feliciani said.
According to Izzy, one negative to her father being a teacher at the high school was being known only as “Mr. Feliciani’s daughter.”
“Going into high school it was weird because everybody knew just me as his daughter as if that were my only personality trait, but I had other fun things about me,” Izzy said.
Another negative aspect of having your dad in school with you is that he knows about the drama happening between high school students, Izzy said.
While she has never had him for a class, Izzy feels she would excel in her father’s classes.
“I would honestly like having him for a class because I feel like that’d be a very easy class,” Izzy said.
Feliciani agrees that Izzy would do well in one of his classes, but feels she would often disrupt class.
“I think she would heckle me the entire class, but she would probably be prepared for her tests,” Feliciani said.