Statesville High math teacher Amanda Freeze enjoys watching her students thrive

BY KARISSA MILLER

As a high school math teacher, Amanda Freeze sometimes gets asked about why she teaches at Statesville High School.

Her answer is simple: “I fell in love with the kids. We have the best students,” she said.

Freeze, who has taught for a decade, has spent most of her career at Statesville High. Among her colleagues and students, Freeze is respected and loved.

Some of her students struggled with math in middle school and did not demonstrate proficiency on standardized tests. 

Despite the challenges her students face, Freeze remains optimistic that they can be successful.

“I like watching their growth and seeing them prove the state wrong on their (achievement) projections,” she explained.

Seeing her students really engage in their learning this year has been inspiring to the veteran teacher.

“You can definitely tell that some of our students lack confidence. Everyone can feel like that in a math class, but with some of our students the confidence is just not there,” she explained.

“I like watching them learn and grow. Then I will see them get their confidence back,” she added.

Only a few days into the new semester, Freeze greets her Honors Math III students as they enter her classroom.

Above her SMART board sits a collection of Mario Kart characters. Students that work at McDonald’s have given her their toys from their Happy Meals as a way to show their appreciation.

After they take their seats, the students know they are in math class. Freeze begins lecturing on what a function is and goes over domain and range properties. As she begins to work through a problem, she pulls up a program called Desmos, an online graphing calculator, and students work alongside her from their seats.

“I’m only good at math when I understand it,” explained 10th-grader Jamielee Stevenson. “Math can be hard for me, but Mrs. Freeze is a good teacher. I like her class so far. I haven’t had her before.”

Student Trey Locklear agrees.

“If I have a teacher I don’t like, it’s hard for me to do good in that class. Without a good teacher, why would I want to go to your class?” he said.

When you ask the students what grade they’d give their school, most of them gave it a B. Some of the students are surprised that the state actually gave it a D. The students describe their teachers as kind, helpful and caring.

Freeze gives a prompt-type problem that gets everyone thinking and engaged. She uses Desmos to graph out the answer and builds a discussion from there.

Next, she gives students about 15 minutes to work on some problems with their peers.

“Once the class starts to get to know each other, I will start to do more group work. Then I’m going to try and do stations,” she said.

Freeze likes to vary the ways the students interact to encourage broad participation in classroom conversations and activities.

Most Statesville High teachers are provided a dedicated planning period during the day, which gives them time to prepare lessons, grade assignments and focus on other administrative tasks.

Due to the shortage of math teachers at her school, Freeze doesn’t have a planning period. Her four classes range in size from 19 to 33 students.

“Our school, our kids are just phenomenal. I wish the community would come in and see all the good things happening in our school. I am proud to be a Greyhound,” she said.