Nashua middle-school teacher starts early

NASHUA – Elm Street Middle School teacher Tammie Robie is used to getting up at 4 a.m. She has been doing it for years, getting a little time to herself, to read, check Facebook, have some coffee and go for a jog before her family wakes up. Since last January, however, that “me time” has been turned into grading time, after she took a part-time teaching job at the Virtual Learning Academy, the state’s only online charter school. “If you’re going to have a part-time job as a teacher, why not be a teacher?” Robie said, laughing, sitting in front of the laptop computer that has become her most important teaching tool. Robie is one of many teachers around the state who have started teaching part time at the online school. The school offers courses from English composition to math and science. While students can receive an entire high school education at the school, many students take individual courses to supplement their traditional education. In fact, only five percent of the charter school’s students attend the school full time. Robie said it has been a challenge, balancing her regular teaching job at the middle school, where she teachers computer literacy to sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders, her family life and a whole new set of students who don’t stop needing teaching after the final bell rings.