Imagine graduating from high school and thinking to yourself, “This is the last year I’ll be in this school.” Pretty easy, right? Now, think ahead five years and see yourself back at the front door of the same high school, dressed formally, ready for a new day of work. Never saw that coming, did you? No one ever really expects to come back and work at his or her old high school, but it happens.

One of the people this happened to is Ms. Huynh, also known as Ms. H or Coach Titi, an alumna from Paint Branch who graduated with the class of 2008. Born in 1990 in Silver Spring, Maryland, Ms. H graduated from Towson University, where she majored in psychology after finishing at PB.

Outside of school, Ms. H’s interests include volleyball, cooking, traveling, and snowboarding. Ms. H said, “I’m as interesting as I want to be, and it’s a secret.” Ms. H likes to keep some mystery about herself to others. The most interesting place Ms. H has ever been is Portugal. According to Ms. H, “Portugal is laid back; I had a good time, and the food’s amazing.”
Ms. H ended up back at PB when she saw that a position as head coach for varsity co-ed volleyball was open and applied for the job. Ms. H gives credit for her return to Paint Branch to all the people who taught her because they were a big influence on her. In particular, she mentions Mr. Oliphant. She has been working at Paint Branch for two years. During the last school year, Ms. H was a long-term sub for biology, and this year she is a paraeducator in addition to coaching co-ed volleyball and girls’ varsity volleyball. She hopes to become a full-time teacher within five years, but she doesn’t have any other commitments or plans for the future.

Regarding her experience back at Paint Branch, Ms. H replies by saying, “It has its ups and downs, but it also has its rewards. The kids remind me why I come back.”

Besides coaching co-ed volleyball, Ms. H also coached girls’ JV volleyball last year and went on to coach girls’ varsity volleyball this year. Ms. H said her experience as head coach of the girls’ varsity volleyball team has been “a lot of work, but it’s an accomplishment to see the girls improve their skills from the beginning of tryouts to the end.”

Some of Ms. H’s teachers from high school still work at Paint Branch; therefore, she now has a co-worker relationship with them instead of a student-teacher relationship. Ms. H says, “It’s weird calling them by their first names, but it’s fun too.” She notes that her former teachers bring up knowing her as a student all of the time.

Ms. H’s Honors English 10A teacher, Mr. De Groff, remembers Ms. H as a “good student, with a good sense of humor, and no behavioral problems.” According to Mr. DeGroff, he was the only teacher to warn Ms. H her writing was not good and helped her to improve her writing. Ms. H remembers this as one of her high school experiences.

Another teacher Ms. H had in high school was Mr. Miller, who taught her in AP NSL. According to Mr. Miller, “Titi was a wonderful student and was a part of a very special class of 2008 because they were my first class as a teacher. I liked her a lot.”

If someone had told Mrs. H in high school that she’d be back here teaching, she would have said, “No thank you.”