If you ever need anything, Mrs. Powell is there for you. If you need help understanding something, Mrs. Powell is there for you. If you need advice, Mrs. Powell is there for you.

As you can see, Paint Branch English teacher Mrs. Cambrian Powell is a dependable and important person to the Paint Branch community. She’s been a proud Panther for seven years and has taught in Montgomery County for eighteen years.

Born in Iowa, Mrs. Powell lived in several other places as a child including Pflugerville, Texas, Lancaster, Virginia and Rockville, Maryland. She started high school at Pflugerville High School in 1987 and graduated from Rockville High School in 1991. After graduation, she attended the University of Maryland, College Park where she received her Bachelor’s Degree in Education in 1996. She went back to school to get her Masters in 1999.

According to Mrs. Powell, before Paint Branch, she worked as a supervisor at CVS. She knew she loved being a teacher when she got her first degree and working in an office bored her.
Mrs. Powell shares her love for the English arts with her students. She says that she “loves the subject she teaches” because, “literature is a universal study of sociology.”

Of course, along with enjoying her work, she must also handle challenges. Her biggest challenge as a teacher is “change” because teaching “is always developing.”

Mrs. Powell earned average grades as a high school student and it affected how she teaches because, she says, it makes her more relatable to the learning process. One thing Mrs. Powell would love to see her students achieve and understand is their own control; as in students will mature and know what they want for themselves. Students will realize they have potential in them just like what she sees in them. One of Mrs. Powell’s former students, 2017 graduate Ivonne Gonzalez, says that “Mrs. Powell always challenges you to be the best version of yourself; whether it’s academically or outside of Paint Branch’s walls.”

Not only is Mrs. Powell a teacher, but she is also a mother who loves playing and raising her two kids, a wife, and a person who enjoys camping, reading, and baking.

Mrs. Powell will always be there for you. She is a mother figure to all of her students; she is understanding and always knows what to say; she tells her students right from wrong; and she helps when you need it, no matter what.