Mandy Duncan, literacy instructional coach for grades K to six in Warsaw Community Schools, is shown reading to students in a classroom. (Photo provided)

WARSAW — It’s pretty evident Mandy Duncan is passionate about teaching. The instructional coach with an emphasis on literacy for grades K through six in Warsaw Community Schools, Duncan has for a long time had a desire to work with children.

She has lived in Warsaw most of her life and is a 1998 graduate of Warsaw Community High School, where she was a cheerleader. While in high school, Duncan was a cadet teacher during her senior year and “fell in love with teaching,” noting she has always liked working with kids.

After high school, she enrolled at Butler University with an intention of going into pediatrics. Duncan recalled she had a great deal of respect for Dr. Leonora Noel, a pediatrician in Warsaw.

But after one year at Butler, she decided to transfer to IPFW and then graduated in 2002 with a bachelor’s degree in elementary education. She then earned a master’s degree from Grace College in general education.

Mandy and her husband, Derrick, who she met while in high school, moved to Angola in 2002. For the 2002-03 school year, Mandy taught full-day kindergarten at Fremont Elementary and then moved to Ryan Park Elementary in Angola where she taught first grade for two years. The Duncans then moved back to Warsaw, which was more familiar territory as most of their families live in the area.

Mandy taught first grade at Leesburg Elementary for five years and then taught first grade for five years at Jefferson Elementary. Now she is in her fourth year as the literacy instructional coach for the eight elementary schools in Warsaw Community Schools.

Duncan said she always enjoyed teaching reading and realizes how very important it is. “It’s important to help teachers with reading instruction practices,” she said, noting she is also helping kids who are struggling with reading problems.

She is well aware of how hard teachers work and being an instructional coach allows her to help both teachers and students in classrooms.

Being an instructional coach means providing a lot of training on best practices in the classroom. “I coach the new teachers in order to support them,” she said. “I hope to build their confidence.”

Speaking from personal experience, Duncan noted teaching can be a lonely job sometimes, being in a classroom with no other adults, and collaboration with other teachers can help. “It (coaching) is shoulder to shoulder work for teachers,” she commented.

Public education is “constantly changing,” she said, and kids are also changing. One example of how teaching reading has changed is kids have more choices in what they read. “When I was in school, everyone was given the same book to read and that is what you were told to read,” she said.

Her goal is for kids to see the value of reading. “There are many different reasons to read,” she said, and practicing reading helps them to grow and learn. Parents reading aloud to children, which does not occur as often as it used to, is also important, she added.

Duncan emphasized her role as an instructional coach is “about supporting teachers,” not telling them what to do. She supports more than she teaches and enjoys working with those teachers who want to grow and are passionate about teaching.

The Duncans live in Warsaw and have two children: Bryce, a freshman at WCHS; and Brody, a sixth-grader at Jefferson Elementary.

Mandy said she enjoys cheering at her sons’ football games, boating at Chapman Lake where her parents have a summer home and snow skiing in the winter. Mandy also teaches Sunday school for grades one to three at Warsaw Community Church where her family attends church.