Henrico's Top Teachers – Allison Reed, Harvie Elementary School

Once Allison Reed’s dreams of becoming a professional soccer player slowly vanished, she figured a career in nursing might be her calling. But a year or so into college at Reynolds Community College, she pondered that path and recalled teaching Sunday School at church when she was younger.

“I was like, ‘Why is it that I don’t want to be a teacher?’” she said. After talking with her family, she decided to switch her focus and transfer to VCU.

“My sister said ‘You have never been this excited before,’” Reed recalled.

As a fifth-grader in Hanover County, Reed said, she learned the importance of studying – and how to study correctly.

“I would go home and have hours of homework,” she said. “My parents called my teacher and asked, ‘Should she be spending so much time on this?’ The teacher said, ‘No – she shouldn’t be. She should be done in an hour.’”

A change in how she studied and how she focused solved that disconnect and set her on a clearer path educationally.

It’s a lesson she recalls often today, in her second year as a fourth-grade teacher at Harvie Elementary School in Eastern Henrico.

“Kids will say, ‘Miss Reed, I don’t get it,’ and I will say, ‘I understand – I didn’t get it either, but we have to keep studying.’”

To help students learn Virginia history, she’ll grab a guitar and sing songs.

As a young teacher who’s spent more than half her career now teaching some or all of her students virtually, the pandemic has forced Reed to pivot quickly and be creative in finding ways to reach her students – many of whom at Harvie are among the most vulnerable in Henrico County.

“It takes a lot more virtually I think to build relationships with students, but if you do it right, you can still get those relationships,” she said. “Kids just wanna be loved, so having a big old smile – even if it’s just behind the mask – helps.”

Last year, she started a “lunch bunch” every Friday, during which she’d pick a few students to eat lunch with her.

“They thought it was the coolest thing,” she said.

This year, while school was still virtual, she was able to schedule small groups of students for similar lunch meetings outside during about an hour or so each week.

“Their parents would drop them off, we’d have lunch together. The girls would be doing cartwheels, the boys would say ‘Miss Reed, here’s this video game I played yesterday. It was just a good way to get to know them.”

Her efforts have paid off in the eyes of parents.

“Throughout the year, she has made learning fun for the kids and even spent extra time with the kids to make sure they were getting it,” one wrote in a nomination letter. “Now she is doing both in person and virtual teaching, so she wouldn’t lose her students. She has had an open door policy with the students and parents. She has done more than expected of her this year and is making sure all her students are passing this school year.”

For Reed, the joy of seeing some students back in the classroom in person only served to continue her push to connect with each student, whether in person or virtual, and to find the path that helps her achieve those connections most effectively, one student at a time.

“One of the reasons why I became a teacher is that kids just want to be loved, and I feel like as teachers, that is our job. Just for them to know that somebody is there to say, ‘Hey, how was your weekend?’ I love being able to do that.”