Outstanding Faculty -
Cary Powers, Upper Division Spanish Teacher

Cary Powers has been teaching Spanish to Middle and Upper Division students at Shorecrest for 11 years. Motivated by her high school Spanish teacher, she graduated from the University of Delaware with a B.A. in Spanish and began teaching at a private school in Delaware. Several years later she expanded her education by getting a Masters degree in counseling. She left teaching for her own private practice in Newark, DE where she counseled women and children. While contracted by Hewlett Packard to provide counseling for their Employee Assistance program, she began providing a brown bag lunch to employees and leading discussions on various topics. While doing this, Mrs. Powers realized how much she missed teaching!

In 1997 when Mrs. Powers moved to St. Petersburg, both she and her son Chris came to Shorecrest: she as a Lower, Middle and Upper Division Spanish teacher and her son as a student in the ninth grade. Although she left the world of counseling, Mrs. Powers incorporated some of those practices into her teaching. Her room is marked as a “safe zone,” where no one is allowed to criticize unfairly, and everyone must be kind to each other.

In addition to teaching her subject, Mrs. Powers took over the Spanish Club. In doing so, she is able to introduce the large Tampa Bay Hispanic community to Shorecrest students and to incorporate community service with the club. Each year the club sponsors a Hispanic child from the Children’s Dream Fund, a Tampa Bay organization that makes dreams come true for children with life threatening illnesses. Starting out with just 10 students, the Spanish Club today has 107 members. The students are divided up into committees where they plan eight different fundraisers, giving them plenty of leadership and learning opportunities. Mrs. Powers’ goal was “to involve all students in a club in which they could participate.”

In addition to sponsoring the Spanish club and teaching Spanish I, II, III and III Honors, Mrs. Powers takes students on a month long summer trip to Spain through Student Voyage (owned by Shorecrest alum Eric Shamas and Jorge Giroud). Approximately 10-15 students spend a month in Seville, Spain attending university classes taught in Spanish. Mrs. Powers tutors and helps the students during the month in addition to taking them on educational sightseeing trips including Gibraltar and Portugal. This summer program that she oversees is a part of her educational philosophy of learning about the global community. “The trip opens up my students’ eyes to the global world and its cultures which is critical for students to understand in today’s world.”