Whether she’s being engulfed in the fine dust of the field, or standing at the head of the classroom, her fingers blurring in the air as she weaves meaning from them, Coach Erica Juenke plans to make the most of the new beginnings of her teaching career. This year Coach Juenke will coach softball and girls basketball, in addition to teaching American Sign Language (ASL). While Coach Juenke was initially drawn to the classroom and teaching aspect, coaching in particular has been an unexpected shift for her. 

 A bartender by trade before the COVID-19 pandemic, Coach Juenke’s start to teaching came about rather unexpectedly. With the economic COVID setbacks, Coach Juenke believed a more stable job was imperative, leading her to attend Lamar University in Beaumont, TX. At university, her decision to study ASL led her in the direction of interpreting, teaching, and advocating for deaf communities. ASL has also been a key component of Coach Juenke’s life, a symptom of growing up partially deaf and having a mother who was an ASL interpreter. Although at first, the interpreting aspect of ASL drew Coach Juenke in, she soon realized that teaching was where she belonged. 

“[Before then], I never would have thought I would be a teacher actually,” Coach Juenke said.

After college, Coach Juenke completed her student teaching at Round Rock High School, enabling her to stay close to her alma mater, Vista Ridge High School. 

“[Vista Ridge] was where I thought I’d end up,” Coach Juenke said. 

Although Coach Juenke initially had hopes of professionally revisiting her alma mater,  a conversation with one of her friends regarding a possible job opportunity at Westwood fueled her interest in teaching here. 

“I asked one of my friends that works [at Westwood] if they needed an ASL teacher, and she looked into it and was like yeah,” Coach Juenke said. “So I applied and got it, and now I’m happy that I’m here.” 

However, what Coach Juenke was unaware of at the time, was that the job came with a coaching position in softball and basketball. For her, this was akin to taking a rather large leap of faith as she had never coached before. She believed teaching came naturally to her, but coaching was a new adventure — one that she was willing to take, a sentiment only solidified by her previous experience in growing up playing basketball and softball.

“As far as coaching goes, I’m still kind of learning,” Coach Juenke said. 

Many teachers express that every new year brings its own set of challenges, and for Coach Juenke, navigating new positions, expectations, and technology has been no small feat. As an ASL teacher, her classes are structured differently. She aims to consistently maintain a voice-off environment and strictly signs in her class. However, according to Coach Juenke, incorporating different learning paces into this method has been a challenge, but she is hoping to treat it as an opportunity to grow as an educator.

“Because there’s so many different learning styles, I have to teach pretty much everything differently,” Coach Juenke said. “Like I’ll teach you one way and then if they don’t understand it, I’ll try and teach it a different way.”