Mark Valentine is a math teacher. This is his second school year at Ida B. Wells, although he has been an educator for 22 years. His favorite thing about working here is the students because everyone has been kind and welcoming. "I felt accepted... which is what I wanted. To feel like I have a place to be," he said. Originally, Valentine did not want to be a teacher, he was in the field of actuarial sciences. But, after moving to Vermont with his family, and finding no job, his mother-in-law suggested that he become a math teacher (she was one herself), and soon found that he enjoyed teaching. "It was awesome. I loved it," Valentine said. He has been a teacher ever since. However, if he was not a teacher, he would want to be a computer programmer or a data scientist. "I want to run all the numbers to that [medical trials]... doing all the mathematics involved in medical trials. That to me is so interesting...  just do all the numbers behind the data and then write my own programs to make it work better," he said. Valentine grew up in Honeyville, Utah, and was always with his younger brother, who he is close in age with, and played many sports. He completed his bachelor's degree in mathematics at Central Connecticut State University. Outside of school, Valentine plays pickleball, hikes with his wife, tinkers with technology, and flips/resells shoes.

Written by Lauren Devlin, Intro to Communications, Fall 2022