Brynn Pellegra

It’s 2005, and Brynn Pellegra, now a third grade teacher at Arlington Elementary, walks across a stage in Germany to receive her diploma. This experience is unique to many, but to Mr. Pellegra, it was what is normal.  Deemed a so-called “army-brat,” Mrs. Pellegra moved and traveled with her father, who was in the United States Army. After graduating from high school in Germany, Mrs. Pellegra relocated and pursued her education at University of Memphis. Mrs. Pellegra began teaching 13 years ago. She is married, has been for 8 years and has 2 daughters, a first grader and a preschooler, both attending Arlington Elementary school.

She started teaching because “I always loved school. I was a babysitter, as soon as I could be worked at summer camps, and after school care, and all kinds of things.” The best experience she’s had was “the welcoming and helpfulness have been such a help for me, the teachers and everybody at central office and the students, everybody has been so welcoming of the new teachers and just helpful, and whatever they can do and answering questions nonstop, and that’s been amazing, its been very helpful transitioning to a new school.” She’s says “ I only taught kindergarten and first grade before so third grade is kind of a big jump.” She is not fond of change and finds it hard to change schools. “Change is hard because I was at my old school for 12 years, and so I had a really tight friend group of teachers and knew all the students and knew how everything worked.”

She works very hard throughout the day to make sure the work gets done. “Our morning is our busiest time to get everything done. We start with first thing in the morning, Math into all the readings and lane vocabulary, all of our instruction is packed in the mornings.” Her classroom is like a “second family”, She treats her students like family and can always come to her for anything. “they can always come to me if they have problems, because we spend so much time together I feel like sometimes I know more about them than anybody else outside their family would”.

She likes that her classroom is a safe space for students to be students. Mrs. Pellegra has experienced some regret as a teacher, “the curriculum is important but it’s not the most important sometimes.” She has been working on making that a better aspect in the classroom. The discipline in her class is done with a lot of positive reinforcements. Her class even plays a role in that. “They helped me create the rewards that they wanted to have, so they’re a little more invested in earning those rewards”.

She is a teacher that brings creativity to the table and has the ability to connect with her students.