Green Mountain Union High School

Hello, and welcome. I am Sharon Jonynas, and I teach both seventh grade language arts and a high school journalism class. This school year, 2011-2012, is my fifth year here at Green Mountain Union High School, and I enjoy working with the middle school students very much. I live in Chester with my husband, one of our four kids, a really cute cat, and a naughty but lovable black Labrador Retriever. Our oldest son, Samuel, is a senior at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, and he will be graduating this May with a degree in math. Another of our sons, Adrian, works with my husband in his plumbing & heating business, and he's going to school and amassing hours toward a Journeyman Plumber's license. Our oldest daughter, Anna, is a freshman at Stonehill College in Easton, Massachusetts, and our youngest, Emily, is a junior at Northfield Mount Hermon, a private school in Northfield, Massachusetts. Some of you probably know one or all of our kids because of their work as lifeguards at the Chester Town Pool. They've all been students at this school in the past, and I feel that this has offered me a unique perspective on homework, school climate, and all things related to our wonderful learning community.

I grew up in Guilford, Connecticut, and moved to Vermont in the 1980s, when my husband and I bought a lodging business here in Chester. After 17 years running that business, I went back to school and earned a Bachelor's Degree in Writing and Literature from Norwich University. I spent several years as a teaching assistant at Chester-Andover Elementary School and decided that I would return to school for my teaching degree. I am licensed to teach both kindergarten through 6th grade and Language Arts for 7th through 12th grades.

I love being immersed in a learning community, and I have found that my students teach me things everyday. I think that you have to connect with students and to respect who they are as learners and as individuals in order for learning to take place, and I am always a willing listener when a student wants to share something about themselves with me.