Teacher Spotlight on Patience Sharp

In her first year at Pinnacle High School (PHS), Special Education teacher Patience Sharp helped her students progress and grow throughout the school year with kindness and support. She teaches in the Structure Autism program, which includes freshman through senior students.

“The focus of this class includes working on life skills, workplace skills and basic academic skills,” Sharp said.

They learn within small groups and have structured 1:1 time with Sharp. Whatever their needs are, Sharp caters her lessons to meet those needs and helps her students learn and understand the curriculum with diversified methods.

On a typical school day, Sharp teaches five groups of kids including two English classes, two history classes and one community-based instruction class (CBI). In this CBI class, Sharp takes her students outside or on field trips.

“The best trips this year were to Comix Restaurant and In-N-Out,” said Sharp.

Not only does she teach these PHS students, but after school she also works with a district program called homebound, a program for kids who stay at home due to health and medical needs. So Sharp works 1:1 time with them and teaches them basic math and reading.

Sharp enjoyed her first year teaching at PHS. Her kids are better behaved than she ever imagined. At her previous school, she was an English teacher and her students were not well-behaved and proved challenging to teach. Sharp’s switch from that middle school to PHS offered a complete change, since her PHS students were willing to work and loved learning. 

“Like, usually, I have to convince them [her middle school students] to do stuff, and make sure they’re not doing what they are not supposed to do,” Sharp said.

Sharp’s current students definitely made the move to PHS more enjoyable for her because they listen to her and participate in what she asks of them.

An accomplished woman, Sharp found herself at one point in her life in back in school to earn her master’s degree, working a full-time job and enjoying life as a mom to three kids. Juggling all of this was a challenge, but a meaningful challenge which Sharp considers a huge accomplishment. Sharp’s own children hold a huge place in her heart. Her oldest daughter Kaitlyn, PHS alumni student and cheerleader, graduated in 2019. Her younger kids, one a freshman and the other a junior, currently attend PHS. Sharp loves her job helping students with special needs and she loves working at the same school as her kids attend.