Ms.Kinter is a teacher here at Sahuaro and has been since 2016. She teaches PE, Pre-Avid, health, and coaches JV Girls Basketball. Ms.Kinter is originally from Chicago and loves all Chicago sports teams. Outside of school she loves to do crossfit, workout, watch sports, and read.

Ms. Kinter was honored on MLK Day at a basketball game at the U of A as a significant teacher for helping minority students keep their grades up. When she started helping kids keep their grades up she said, “It started out really small like study groups.” These groups started expanding further, leading Ms. Kinter to help more and more students. The building connections and homework help didn’t stop when the pandemic hit. Kinter went above and beyond to reach out to students to provide help, “scheduling zoom meetings… holding them after class” to further her duties. Something she noticed is that students need “confidence with assignments” to be able to complete them. And she is willing to help give them the confidence they need. “I’m not good at math,” she admits, “… but anything besides math” is what she can help with. She has different methods for different situations, “… like with reading books, I read books along with them and talk about it.” If there is a paper that needs to be written, she helps them with the outline and checks it. She’s even helped seniors get on track to graduate and still has many great relationships with people she has helped.

Ms. Kinter also teaches an all-girls weight class which is a small class but she has fun instructing it. She expressed having fun with coaching JV Girls Basketball and getting to know the players, “It’s really fun but some years has been challenging more than others because of Covid.”

Believe it or not, but being a teacher wasn’t always a dream of hers. “I originally graduated in communication and marketing.” She worked for an advertising company in Chicago where clients would pay the company to advertise for their brand. Some of the businesses they’ve advertised include Toyota, Verizon, Longhorn Steakhouse, and more.  She didn’t realize until later that helping kids would be something she wants to do. She enjoyed her advertising job too, but she definitely loves what she does now.

When asked what her feelings were when she found out about being honored as a significant teacher she said, “I was shocked, I don’t do it to be recognized, I just help people who need it.” She also added, ” It’s nice to be recognized… to think that someone thinks I deserve it.”

Well, Ms. Kinter does deserve it. Making a change in students’ lives is important to be recognized. Congratulations to Ms. Kinter on her hard work and dedication. We as Cougars are proud to have her at Sahuaro.