Spend just a few minutes with Yazmin Lewis and you’ll see the love she has for her students, but getting to this point in her life is something she never expected. Lewis' career actually began a few years back.
Just after her playing days were over, she became a coach for the SUNY Plattsburgh women’s basketball team. But once COVID hit, the season was cancelled, and she was without a job.
“I was kind of thinking, what am I going to do next? My previous career choice was no longer reliable for me,” said Yazmin Lewis, now a Binghamton City School second grade teacher.
It didn’t long for her to hear of the drastic need for substitute teachers across our region. She began filling in with the Binghamton City School District, then not long after, she was offered a position as a long-term sub. Then, after falling in love with teaching, she went back to school, and was later offered a full-time position as a second grade teacher, while still attending classes herself.
“Now I’m even more relatable, because now my kids realize that Ms. Lewis is not just Ms. Lewis the teacher, but I’m also Ms. Lewis the student, so I get the concerns and the stress of being an active student and also being in a school setting," said Lewis.
Just one floor up, you’ll find another energetic teacher in a similar boat. Joshua Wallenstein is also a long-term sub who’s fallen in love with teaching, even if it wasn’t his first choice.
“I did not think that I wanted to work in a school, and I just saw the position was available and so I applied and I got in and the first classroom I was in, it was just nothing like I expected, it just so exceeded my expectations,” said Wallenstein.
Just a few days as a substitute hooked Wallenstein on teaching, and now he says he couldn’t see himself doing anything else.
“Seeing that joy for them in accomplishing something that they didn’t know they could and seeing growth, I think that motivates me to come back. I never saw myself teaching before and now it’s something I see myself doing for a long, long time to come," said Wallenstein.
These two soon-to-be former substitutes are proof that sometimes it’s not where you start your career, but where you finish. The Binghamton City School District is currently accepting substitutes in all elementary schools, the middle school and the high school.