English Teacher Spring Gehring-Lowery Leaving to Teach in Texas

The crowd lines both sides of the street and muggy air surrounds the area, smelling of rain. Luckily, the forecast says the rain will hold off for a few more hours. Seniors dance around their float to “Tik Tok” by KE$HA as they head towards Prairie Village shopping center. Kansas City star photographers take pictures of the floats as elementary students sprint to pick up Laffy Taffy and Starbursts off the ground. East English teacher Spring Gehring-Lowery stands among the parents and students, watching the parade pass.

For Gehring-Lowery, the Lancer Day parade is just one of many things that she will miss as she moves to Texas later this year.

“I’ll miss the coffee shop because it’s really cool, no other school has had that,” Gehring-Lowery said. “I am going to miss the pep rallies, the choir singing in the hallways and the band going through the hallways. I’m also going to miss Sports Picks with Will and Nick, you have to put Sports Picks in there. I’m gonna miss all these things.”

Gehring-Lowery is leaving behind the people and events of East during the last weekend in May. She is moving to the town of Flower Mound, north of Fort Worth, TX. Her husband, Joshua Lowery, has been in Texas since the beginning of November after accepting a job with Wilson Mohr, an industrial controls company. Before changing jobs and moving, Lowery worked in industrial sales for Burner Design and Control, a company specializing in heating.

“[He] was offered a position down there that had a higher pay,” Gehring-Lowery said. “We had been wanting to get back to Texas for a while.”

Moving back to Texas brings some challenges for Gehring-Lowery, from looking for teaching jobs in Texas, to only seeing her husband once a month.

“We try to see each other once a month,” Gehring-Lowery said. “It’s been really difficult. We do have our daughter who is 12 and she is in a lot of different activities, and then with work and taking care of all the animals it’s been kinda tough to do it all on my own. We don’t have a lot of family in the area so a lot of the responsibility falls on me.”

One of the challenges for Gehring-Lowery is transporting her horse nearly 550 miles in the summer heat. She is currently looking for a cross country horse hauler to help transport her horse. According to Gehring-Lowery, it’s necessary to use a hauler because the horses need a periodic break from the heat along with food and water.

After arriving in Texas, Gehring-Lowery’s troubles won’t be over. As of now, she doesn’t have a specific job lined up. The school systems in Texas are currently going through the same problems that the systems in Kansas have been going through since the recession started in December of 2007: budget cuts. Nearly $5.4 billion dollars was recently cut from the school budget by the Texas state legislature according to a Texas State Teachers Association press release.

If Gehring-Lowery can’t find a teaching job, she might have to find a job in a different field for a few years while she waits for the state education budget to go back up.

“I probably would go back into human resources,” Gehring-Lowery said. “Or maybe something in industrial sales, something similar to  that.”

If Gehring-Lowery is able to find a teaching position in Texas, she wants to teach at a school where she will be able to connect with her students while also getting them to enjoy learning. Gehring-Lowery will be looking to get a job similar to her first teaching job at Cy-Ridge high school, a Title One school in Texas. A Title One school is a school with a large portion of the students struggling financially.

“I really had to work to gain my students respect and trust and motivate them to want to learn,” Gehring-Lowery said about Cy-Ridge high school. “When I could do that with a class of students it was amazing. It was really great to feel like I can get these kids to love learning and they can really do something.”

Although Gehring-Lowery has taught at both a school in Texas and one in Kansas, her students from both schools have the same thing in common – the ability to change her outlook on life.

“My favorite part about teaching is that [my students] make me laugh every single day,” Gehring-Lowery said. “I really enjoy and appreciate how enthusiastic and idealistic my students are, it gives me faith and hope that when things are not going well in the world it can turn around.”

Gehring-Lowery’s students laugh alongside her according to sophomore Taylor MucCullough.

“She is very personable and easy to talk to,” McCullough said. “She is a teacher, but sometimes she can also be like a friend too.”

Although Gehring-Lowery is moving to Texas, she will still be looking to do her favorite thing and continue to improve students’ lives and their opportunities.

“I can get these [former students at Cy-Ridge high school] to love learning,” Gehring-Lowery said. “They can really do something. I believe in the phrase ‘education is power.’ You know, education is the one thing that we can gain that no one can take away from you. It gives you options, provides doorways and pathways that may not have existed before.”