Henrico's Top Teachers – Jill Rich, Varina High School, environmental science

Energy Supply, Energy Demand, Biotech Foundations, Geospatial Technology I, and Unmanned Aircraft Systems – these are all classes that Jill Rich, a jewelry design major turned technology education instructor, now teaches at Varina High’s new specialty center.

This is not Rich’s first foray into teaching; a few years ago, she began teaching family and consumer sciences at Brookland Middle after previously working for a jeweler. But this is Rich’s first foray into a lot of things – high school, technology education, biotechnology, specialty centers, and Varina.

“First year tech ed, first year at Varina, first year high school – it’s completely different, I mean completely different age group, completely different content,” Rich said. “My background is in art, and now I’m moving into renewable energy sources and power grids and circuitry and biotechnology. So it’s been a lot of learning as I go, but it’s also been a lot of fun.”

Varina’s Center for Environmental Studies and Sustainability, which hosts high schoolers from across Henrico County who applied for the specialty program, is only two years old. Students focus specifically on environmental science, studying renewable energy sources and experimenting with how modern technology can be mixed with biology and ecology.

The content involves a lot of hands-on field experiments, setting up greenhouses and gardens, and field trips to power plants. It also involved a lot of time for Rich, who had to set forth and learn all of the complex material she would soon have to teach to her students.

“It was a lot of reading on my own, a lot of learning before I’m teaching it,” Rich said. “But I was ready to try something new and challenging. I think emotionally, I think physically, all of the above, I was just ready for a change.”

As both a first-year high school teacher and first-year tech ed instructor, Rich is definitely not immune to screw-ups. This first year has been filled with a lot of trial and error when it comes to lesson plans, but the most important thing, Rich said, is that she succeeds in earning her students trust.

“My students are not going to learn from me unless they know they can trust me, so I have to prove that I’m trustworthy and that I’m honest with them,” she said. “That means apologizing when I screw up or when a lesson plan falls apart. Once they know that I’m there for them and that I will do everything that I can to see them succeed, then pretty much they’ll let me teach them.”

Rich is also a big proponent of allowing students to take charge of their own learning now that they are in high school.

“Giving my students some say-so in how they learn and what they learn where I can, making them responsible and accountable for their learning so they understand that it’s really up to them,” she said. “I’m here to kind of walk alongside them, but they need to take responsibility that I can’t do the learning for them.”

Rich’s genuine care for and dedication to her students shines through inside and outside the classroom, according to a parent of one of her students. Along with another technology teacher, Rich launched a new drone club at Varina, dedicating two nights each week for several months to help the club prepare for a local competition.

“She has gone above and beyond any teacher I know. Her commitment to her students’ education is extraordinary,” the parent wrote in a nomination letter. “She understands the importance of connecting with her students and teaches content in ways that match their unique learning styles. Most importantly, she truly cares about her students and makes every effort to recognize their uniqueness.”

For all of the scared freshmen walking into a new school, leaving behind the familiarity of their home schools and the friends they grew up with, Rich provides grace and support, the parent wrote, including to his own son.

“My youngest son has greatly improved his desire to learn and loves to go to class, especially Mrs. Rich’s,” he wrote said. “He participates in class discussions more than he ever did and truly feels the care she has for him and her students.”

Some of the best moments of teaching, Rich said, is when she can see through a student’s hard work how they have learned to value themselves and value their own skills and abilities. During the open-note final for her class, Rich remembers looking through her students’ answers, seeing that they took in what she had tirelessly worked to teach them throughout the year.

“I had a couple of kids who actually brought in really great notes. They listened, they took the time,” she said. “It’s like yes, you got it. You understand where we were going and you just made me really proud of you because you took the time, the initiative, you valued yourself enough to do a good job.”

When students trust her to give them a good education, when they come into her classroom with high expectations from her teaching – those are other moments that make Rich glad she took on the challenge of teaching.

“When students trust me to do my job well, when they come in expecting a good education, that demands me to do my best and that’s pretty exciting – that they really care and they want to learn,” she said. “It’s a dream job. I pinch myself that I get to come to work everyday.”