Behind the Scenes Staff: Alexa in Attendance

Mathew Futch

Staff Reporter

Every day, we walk around our beautiful campus and ignore the staff who work behind the scenes here at Ironwood. In the front office is one of Ironwood’s lovely attendance ladies, Alexa (as she prefers to be called), who has been working at Ironwood high school for almost ten years!

Though Alexa may be in the front office currently, she did not initially work there. She originally worked in the ARISE program before it was referred to as ARISE, then she came to be an attendance lady not long after. Her end goal at Ironwood is to be working in the special education program that Mrs. Dodge, Mr. Pasinski and Ms. Bartz work in, as well as be at Ironwood for as long as possible.

Even though her current job involves the attendance office, she does anything she is asked by the teachers and administrators to help them out. However, her main job is to take phone calls, write late passes for students, give detentions and find students' locations to call them out early.

Ms. Alexa graduated back in 2009 from Ironwood High School and her mother, Ms. Whittle, works right next to her. She was going to school to be a dental assistant, and while looking for a job, she helped her mother, working more as a volunteer in the front office. Shortly after, a job opening appeared at Ironwood, and she took the opportunity to take it. She then worked her way up to get into the office, being in there for over five years.

When asked for the positives of working at Ironwood, she says she loves the kids, but the biggest positive is having the same schedule as her thirteen-year-old daughter who goes to Heritage, letting her be very much a part of her daughter's life. Though when asked about the challenges, at first she said that there is not much, but after really thinking about it, she said certain parents can be an issue. Those who think that their child is amazing and would not lie. In scenarios like those, parents do not understand what quite happens on campus and that the attendance workers want the best for the children too.

At the moment, Ms. Alexa wishes to finish her teaching degree and get a job in the resource program. Back when she was at Ironwood, she played on the girls' soccer team and won state championships that year. Now, she coaches soccer at the moment though. She also won Pride of Peoria previously. She loves Starbucks’ cake pops and every time she goes there she has to get one. A final tidbit is that Alexa is a huge fan of the DiamondBacks.

To conclude this interview with Ms. Alexa, Eagle's Eye Newspaper would like to thank her for all the hard work she has put into Ironwood and for loving it so much to even come back. We hope that she continues to work at Ironwood and eventually gets her dream job.

Image Credit: Mathew Futch