Ms. Absher: fostering excellence in and out of the classroom.

By Amber Stentzel

Many hard-working, independent women go under the radar, and with Women’s History Month, it is important that we recognize them. One woman in particular comes to mind who has impacted many students as an Owasso High School teacher: Ms. Absher.

Ms. Absher has been an Owasso High School teacher for 30 years. She teaches Advanced Biology to Freshmen and Sophomores. She hadn’t planned to become a teacher, but she has found a profound love for it. After high school, she went to optometry school and took many science classes. As she was waiting to become an optometrist, she discovered she could become a teacher, and her family was very excited because they were all teachers, too. 

A picture of Ms. Absher from Owassops.org

“I love chatting with the kids, especially helping them plan for the future,” Ms. Absher beamed.

Ms. Absher touched on how she would have loved to be a career counselor for students. She encourages students to ask questions. One thing that she wished she had been better about in the past was asking questions, so she encourages students to ask her for advice. 

“You are gonna need help in school and life; accept help if someone is offering it to you,” Ms. Absher advised. 

One thing that has stood out to her students is how much she cares about them and her kids at home. She rarely misses school, and the only time she does is to take care of her kids. It can be a big sacrifice for parents or teachers to drop everything for their children, and this action shows her dedication to both her job and her kids.

Ms. Absher fosters kids and has adopted three. She had always seen ads for fostering on TV and in the newspaper. In her first year of teaching, she met a foster student, and that encounter impacted her decision to finally become a foster parent. She decided to drive to the DHS office and fill out the necessary paperwork. The process of finally having her first foster kid took a year.

She talked about her involvement as a foster parent and the things she has learned from it. Being a foster parent is not for everyone; the things she has seen and experienced have impacted her, and she just wants to help those kids. She touched on how being a single foster parent is hard, but that is all she has done, and she is used to it. 

“There is a lot of support. There is a really big network online where we help each other out,” Ms. Absher explained. 

Ms. Absher touched on how even though she fosters alone, there is a big community that supports each other. She explained how she helped her friend, who is a foster mother, by sending her food. These connections have helped her and other parents who do the same thing.

“I do think some of the [fostering] training I have gotten has helped me with my classroom,” Ms. Absher explained.

Ms. Absher has applied what she has learned from being a foster mom to her classroom. She has acquired skills in how to better understand her students and what they might be going through.

“You never know what is happening in somebody's house or their life, so just be careful with how you treat someone.”

Sometimes, it can be easy to judge someone, but we never know what they are going through. Ms. Absher has done some amazing things to help her foster children and her students in class. It is imperative that we recognize her and other teachers who might go unnoticed, especially this Women’s History Month.