Kim Stoffers, math teacher and department chair, has been teaching OHS for nine years. Stoffers spent last year as an instructional coach at a different school and said she came back because she “missed the classrooms and the higher-level students.”
“I was at a junior high school,” Stoffers said. “So I went from teaching precalculus to seventh grade math.”
Stoffers was involved in sports and enjoyed staying active throughout her youth. In high school, she first dislocated her shoulder at a time when Chandler Evans, now OHS athletic director, was her trainer. Despite her faulty shoulder, which she has dislocated on several occasions, she went on to play softball in college.
“I had four surgeries and a shoulder replacement at 26 [years old],” Stoffers said. “It affected me in the sense that I moved positions so I didn’t have to throw.”
However, she was dedicated to the sport and her tenacity allowed her to continue to play through the pain. Stoffers said that she always knew she wanted to be a teacher, but her team-mates played a major role in inspiring her choice of career.
“My teammates would always come and ask me for help on the day of their tests,” Stoffers said. “I realized that that was stuff they should’ve learned in high school and I decided I wanted to be a math teacher, to get students who struggled in math to understand enough to make it through college.”
Stoffers said she enjoys being a teacher and “loves coming to work and making it easier for students to learn.”
“Ms. Stoffers does everything in her power to provide her students with a positive learning environment,” said Rachel Arns, junior. “She is very patient and is always willing to help, truly cares for all of her students and wants to see each and every one of them succeed.”