Mrs. Tiffany Ailsworth is a new math teacher here at Centreville High School. She teaches ESOL Algebra, ESOL Geometry, and regular geometry. Before coming to Centreville, she previously lived in a small town called Benton, outside of Little Rock, Arkansas. Her husband is an accomplished administrator in the education department. She has three smart, young daughters. Her eldest daughter graduated last year from Centreville, the second oldest attends Liberty Middle School and is a seventh-grader, and the youngest is in third-grade.

Mrs. Ailsworth attended the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, and has a B.A. (Bachelor of Arts) in Math with a Minor in Secondary Education. Additionally, she possesses a Masters in Secondary Education. Mrs. Ailsworth was not your traditional college student; She didn’t get the “college life” experience that many wish to have. Instead, she “commuted daily to college while working a part-time job as CSR, Customer Service Representative, at a bank” in order to save some money for her future.

Most people know what they would like to do for the rest of their lives around senior year. This was not the case for Mrs. Ailsworth. As an attempt to find out what she wanted to do, she decided to become a math teacher because she wanted to put her math degree to good use. Once she started her teaching career, she knew it was the right path for her: “During my first few years of teaching, I realized [that] this was what I was supposed to do. The impact we as teachers have on our students make such a difference in their lives, especially those who may be less fortunate…It is a challenging, but rewarding job.”

As previously mentioned, Mrs. Ailsworth lived in Arkansas before coming to Virginia. In Arkansas, she taught high school math for 11 years. When she moved to Virginia, she taught at Falls Church High School for three years. This is her first year at Centreville High School, even though it’s her fourth year working for Fairfax County Public Schools. In total, she has dedicated 15 years of her life to educating young teens.

In addition to teaching, Mrs. Ailsworth loves to bake and craft. She also enjoys spending time with her family. When I asked her what she likes to do in her free time, her answer was, “We all love to travel to the beach and recently discovered we like to ski, even though we are not good at it. We have two of our daughters that play competitive softball, so we spend a lot of time traveling to watch them play, and we love it.”

Although she may have never seen herself teaching when she was younger, Mrs. Ailsworth knows that it was the right choice to make. It has only brought her joy to know that she is able to help students get an education and accomplish their goals. Mrs. Ailsworth is an example of how perseverance and hard work allows an individual to achieve happiness even in the most unexpected of ways.