Pat-Med teacher Teresa Perez inspires students to want to be teachers too

When Teresa Perez was a student at Fairfield University in Connecticut in 1998, she wanted to become an event planner.

It was her mother, Patricia Walsh Perez, who suggested teaching might be a better career path.

“You know who does event planning every day? A teacher,” Perez said her mother told her.

Perez, of Centerach, took her advice and never looked back.

Now 46, Perez teaches Teaching as a Profession I and II at Patchogue-Medford High School. The courses give students considering a career in education a real-world look at what it’s like to be a teacher. The program, which has about 30 students, is one of nine career tracks the school offers.

Perez takes her students into the district’s schools, where they get to work directly with classroom teachers and students. Her classes have launched careers in education for several students, including at least two who now work for the district.

Perez completed a competitive, yearlong fellowship at Stony Brook University, called Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities. Her project focused on developing strategies to make career and technical education courses more inclusive for neurodiverse students.

She has had her students participate in SkillsUSA, a national program in which students compete to demonstrate mastery in a particular field of study. Perez’s students prepared a lesson plan and presented it to a panel of judges.

Perez is also one of the advisers for Pat-Med’s Mock Trial team and adviser to Pat-Med’s chapter of the National Honor Society and the Take a Look at Teaching club.

She’s also big on collaborating with Pat-Med’s other Career and Technical Education teachers.

For the school’s annual fashion show, which featured student-designed fashions from different countries in the Caribbean, Perez’s students prepared bulletin boards with facts about each of the countries.

“She’s a force,” said Janna Bonacorsi, director of Career and Technical Education for the district.

Perez has a master’s in early childhood education from Dowling College, teaches a course at Farmingdale State College and is studying for a certificate in Early Education Leadership from Harvard University Graduate School of Education. “I love being in the classroom,” she said. “I love teaching and being with the kids.”

And Perez’s students love her back.

Luciana D’Ambrosio took Perez’s class at Pat-Med.

D’Ambrosio, 22, went on to get her degree in Child Study from St. Joseph’s University in Patchogue and is now a sixth grade math teacher at Saxton Middle School in the Pat-Med school district and JV girls volleyball coach at the high school.

“She really took the time to get to know us,” D’Ambrosio said. “She encouraged us. She made me feel like I could make a difference in students’ lives.”

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