Students may rarely think about it, but teachers do have lives outside of school.  For instance, Ms. Kristy Lynn Bormann, who teaches English 1 and American Literature at Cathedral Catholic, loves to play guitar, do yoga, and spend time with fellow teachers Ms. Gutilla and Ms. Tysor. She’s also lived in many places and held different jobs.

“I was born in San Diego, but my dad was in the military.  I moved from Cuba to Virginia, I lived all over the place.  I came back to San Diego and went to Uni when I was a sophomore in high school,” said Ms. Bormann.  At Uni, she had teachers such as Ms. Mauro, who used to teach English, Mr. Mclean, Mr. Spellacy, Mrs. Harrison, Mrs. Larson, Mr. Anderson, and Mrs. Harmaning.

Ms. Bormann used to teach English as a second language and majored in Spanish.  She moved to South America to teach English while learning Spanish at the same time.  Later, when she moved back here, she had a job working for the International Rescue Committee (IRC), teaching refugees English.

Ms Bormann had two jobs at the same time, teaching at Poway Unified School District adult school at night and working at the IRC and community college during the day.  She decided she wanted to only focus on one job, and at that time, Cathedral, in its second year, was in need of some teachers.

“I happened to be in touch with Ms. Mauro, who said that Cathedral was looking for an English teacher,” said Ms. Bormann. “I applied and it’s a good fit.  It’s very familiar and welcoming.  It’s good seeing the teachers I once had.”

Other students, such as senior Renee Schmiedeberg are glad about her move to Cathedral. “She’s awesome, and she’s really encouraging; she’s never degrading, and she’s always smiling,” she said. Kelcie Williams, a junior currently in Ms. Bormann’s class, said, “She relates to us really well and tries to make class different and exciting.”

Kecie Williams said, “I like relating genres of literature to each other.  We take a story written one hundred years ago and relate it to a song written a year ago.”

Sophomore Michael Wayne, creator of the “I Heart Ms. Bormann” Facebook page especially enjoyed Mrs. Bormann’s emphasis on vocabulary.  “For vocabulary, Ms. Bormann would present us the infamous ‘vocabulary spotlight,’ which is the highlight of every single one of her classes,” Michael said. “She is very astute. She teaches so well it’s scary, and she inspires the minds of all students.”