While students may know their teachers for only four years, some teachers have been around much longer. Tina Ely is one of these teachers.
Ely has been teaching at Northview for 27 years. She currently teaches Pre-AP Geometry, Advanced Pre-Calculus, and AP Calculus, as well as co-leading the math department with Trevor Chalmers.
Ely attended Michigan State and majored in math. One of the main reasons she decided to become a teacher is because of her family life growing up.
“I’m an oldest sibling and grandchild in my family, so I’ve always been helping my younger siblings or cousins with things. I always liked helping other people and I really enjoyed school,” Ely said.
While Ely spends a lot of her time at school, when she does get downtime she likes to spend it with her friends and family just having fun.
“The last few years I feel like I never go away from school because I do so much schoolwork. But I like spending time outside, I like running. I do enjoy sports and doing activities like that,” Ely said.
What Ely loves most about Northview is that it has always been an accepting environment.
“Northview just has a really awesome community where it’s all about building relationships and people like being with each other, and in general people are kind,” Ely said.
Along with teaching, Ely has gotten involved in coaching during her time at Northview. She coached varsity volleyball during her first year here as well as a second time a few years later. Ely loved sports in school and she always had great coaches growing up who taught her things about what she has done.
“My high school basketball coach taught me that caring about your students and athletes is more important than anything else,” Ely said.
Even with her schedule of teaching three classes, Ely finds ways to be in touch with her students.
“I often do good news or just talk about their weekend, or different things like that just to try to get to know my students better outside of class,” Ely said.
Building relationships with her students and supporting them is one of Elys’ favorite things about her career.
“Connecting with students is what I love most about teaching and coaching. The most rewarding part is helping them achieve more than they ever believed that they could.”
