Meet our New Teachers

Meet Our New Speech Teacher By: Daric F. and Kent S.

Mrs. Wagner grew up in Poughkeepsie, NY but lives in North Tonawanda, NY with a dog named Bear. Thought she said, "I’d like to move down" closer to Gow. She still has family in Poughkeepsie and North Tonawanda. From a young age, Mrs. Wagner said that she always new that she wanted to work with people and to help people. After high school, Mrs. Wagner attended Buffalo State where she earned her undergraduate degree in Speech and Hearing Science. She recently graduated in May from the University at Buffalo with her masters degree in Speech Language Pathology.

Prior to working here, she jumped around to different schools helping out with speech. When Ms. Vinciguerra left Gow, Mrs. Wagner was sent by the Buffalo Hearing and Speech Center to help as a speech teacher here. This was the first time that Mrs. Wagner had ever heard about The Gow School.

When she read up on it, she thought it was so cool how "great the school’s mission is, and that you guys are getting specialized services to help you do the best in the future." Ever since Mrs. Wagner arrived at Gow, she said that "it has been great and a smooth transition." So far the best part of Mrs. Wagner's day has been the in-person therapy and being able to work in speech class face-to-face.

Mrs. Wagner is a fan of the film company A24, they produce movies like Midsommar and Moonlight and her favorite book of all time is Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. In high school, Mrs. Wagner was on the crew team and continued to do that in collage getting all the way up to division one in crew.

Welcome to Gow, Mrs. Wagner!

Continued from Fight for Freedom

masks at protests. People started using that before Covid hit, the protesters wore masks to cover their faces. Soon it was made illegal to umbrellas to hide their identity from cameras. Laser pointers were also used to confuse security cameras.

According to VICE, the Democratic citizens of Hong Kong want complete separation from China, so the PRC cannot wrongfully harm any citizens of Hong Kong.

Meet Mr. Anderson By: Fritz O.

Mr. Anderson is the new music teacher, guitar lessons, vocal recording, and music production. Music production is using software to create music, we use the same software that the pros use. Nighty five percent of music is created through technology nowadays.

Mr. Anderson grew up in Holland, NY. He attended Holland high school for two years then attended SUNY Erie Community College, then Buffalo State for two years. While at Buffalo State he participated in a student exchange at Monash University in Australia. Mr. Andersons has a major in communications and a minor in digital music production.

Mr. Anderson wanted to be a teacher because, “I like the idea of helping students reaching their goals.” Mr. Anderson claims he’s a patient guy. The way that Mr. Anderson said, “ I want students to reach their goals in music production. Teaching this complex topic, consolidate it into something for someone to digest it easily.”

Before Gow Mr. Anderson worked at two bars. Both closed due to COVID-19. Mr. Anderson has a younger half-brother and a half-sister, also has two cats and a golden retriever, none on campus. Mr. Anderson’s favorite movies are The Shining, Departed, Joker, and Dark Knight series, but he likes non-fiction historic movies like 1917 and Saving Private Ryan. Yes, he’s a Marvel fan Mr. C and Mr. Chafin. Mr. Anderson’s book recommendations are So good they can’t ignore you by Cal Newport and blink by Malcolm Gladwell.

The Gow School almost lucked out on not getting Mr. Anderson as a music

teacher because “I Almost ended up going to Fredonia for English education because I wanted to become an English teacher but I kinda got cold feet last minute and backed out.”

Even if Mr. Anderson chose an English education route, he probably would have still made his way to Gow because Mr. Anderson had a high school friend Victor Mohney ‘15 and Ms. Dobinski. Mr. Anderson likes Gow because of how it helped Victor, and what it has done for Ms. Dobinskis’ career. This is Mr. Anderson’s first time teaching students with learning differences, he’s been thinking about it for a while. Although Mr. Anderson considered volunteering at a summer camp for students with learning differences but never followed through. Mr. Anderson saw Gow as a good option and way to introduce himself to that teaching style.

Ms. Nakajima, a Great Addition By: Allie M.

Miss Nakajima is the new math teacher for pre-algebra and algebra one classes. She was born in Arizona and lived there until high school when she moved to South Dakota. After high school, she went to Black Hills University in South Dakota where she majored in music education.

She has four siblings and one of her sisters is married to Mr. Bray. Before she came to Gow, she was the manager of an ice cream shop, but when her brother-in-law Mr. Bray told her about an open position at Gow, she decided to go for it. She also wanted to explore the teaching world and loved the Gow community. She now lives at Gow in Whitcomb dormitory with her cat, Echo.

She didn’t specifically see herself helping students with learning differences but knew she wanted to help anyone she could. She decided to be a teacher because she was always close with her teachers and wants to be that for another student. And being a teacher was her dream job since she was growing up.

Miss Nakajima’s favorite time of her day is when she can spend time with her cat. She loves watching How I Met Your Mother and reading Harry Potter. She also loves crafts and doing origami. Welcome to the Gow community!

One of our new instructional assistants is a former Gow student. Ms. Sullivan found out about Gow because her dad worked here also her uncle came to Gow as a student. Ms. Sullivan grew up in Buffalo and now lives in Green Cottage.

Ms. Sullivan attended Ashland University in Ohio. Originally majoring in Nursing, she switched to Health and Risk Communication because she just didn’t enjoy the Nursing program. She also has a minor in Public Relations and certificate for Youth Mental Health. She worked for AmeriCorps where she was stationed as a youth mental health specialist.

After she finished her last contract with the AmeriCorps, she decided to start working at Gow to give back to the school. She decided to work here because Gow helped her so much “if there’s one caring adult that a student can relate to, they will do amazing things and I want to be that to someone.”

She never really saw herself as a teacher because she didn’t think that she could do it, but when she started teaching she learned how passionate she was for this job.