Not many people would choose to come back to high school after graduation, but social studies teacher and Chapman graduate Kimberley Ensley is one of the few who made the choice to come back, just in a different role this time. 

“I thought it might be weird working with the teachers that I had in high school, but I feel like I have grown up since then and matured, so I can look at it from a professional standpoint,” said Ensley. 

Ensley graduated from Chapman in 2017 and attended college at North Greenville University. Right out of college, Ensley heard of Chapman having an opening in the history department and knew she wanted to work at the high school she grew up at. 

“I feel like I learned a lot here as a person, and this is the place that I decided that I wanted to be a teacher,” said Ensley. “I thought that coming back here for my first teaching job would be less stressful because I know how everything works here, and I thought coming back would help me navigate my first year better than if I went to a new school.” 

Ensley’s students are thankful for her and enjoy being in her class. 

“She is really nice and she is young, so she can relate to us better than some of the other teachers,” junior Hailey Linder said. 

Ensley chose to be a teacher because she had her own role model at Chapman that inspired her, and she decided that she wanted to inspire kids the way this teacher inspired her. 

“I had a teacher in high school, Kendal Moseley, and I just saw the way that she poured into and loved on students,” said Ensley. “I noticed how she changed my life by not just helping me in school but also helping me outside of school, and I wanted to have the same effect that she did.”