Mrs. Heidi Brown is a double-AP course teacher at Centreville, an expert in both AP Psychology and AP U.S. History. She came to Centreville as a teacher in 2013, teaching psychology throughout the past ten years.

Mrs. Brown is one of our few faculty members that actually attended Centreville as a high schooler and returned to teach. After graduating from Centreville, she went to James Madison University, earning her Master’s degrees in secondary education and gifted education. Additionally, she graduated with an undergraduate degree in history and minored in political science, psychology, and secondary education.

Most people have evolving dreams and are unsure about their future career paths but this does not apply to Mrs. Brown. Ever since she was young, she had her sights set on becoming a teacher. Soon after graduating, she spent half a year at Robinson Secondary School as a long-term substitute teacher. In the following year, she found herself at Centreville, where she has been happily teaching history and psychology courses for a decade. While AP Psychology has been a course she has stuck with for many years, AP U.S. History is still a relatively new course for her as she made the switch from teaching freshman History 1 Honors to “APUSH” two years ago. However, she enjoys teaching both courses immensely.

Mrs. Brown currently lives in Gainesville, Virginia with her husband and two sons, who are in second grade and kindergarten. Her husband is a firefighter, stationed at our local Centreville fire station. Her sons participate in extracurriculars including soccer and taekwondo, which tend to take up a good portion of Mrs. Brown’s free time. Apart from taking care of her family, she spends her free time exploring musical activities. She is a member of a singing quartet as well as a German dance group, both competitively.

When asked what her favorite aspects of teaching high school students are, Mrs. Brown shared that getting to know her students makes teaching all the more enjoyable for her. As a teacher, she feels that each day is different and it never gets boring. That said, she definitely does not see herself at a desk job at any point of her life. While she plans on remaining a teacher for the years to come, she is definitely open to experiencing new areas of teaching: “I would love to be a college professor, but it’s an unrealistic hope.”

This 2022-2023 school year marked the beginning of Centreville’s freshman mentor program, the Wildcat Mentors. Mrs. Brown, along with Mrs. Golodolinski, headed the program and is proud to say that it was an overall extremely successful year. She looks forward to continuing its management and watching it grow and flourish over the years.