Joining our Heritage family this school year, teaching science, is Mrs. Mary Pursley. Mrs. Pursley has been married for twenty five years and has a son who is 11. She spends most of her free time shuffling her son to golf matches and practices. However, Pursley isn’t a new Heritage General. In fact, Mrs. Pursley worked at Heritage Middle School for several years before relocating to our very own Heritage High School. With that being said, her teaching career goes farther back than that. In 2001, she started her first teaching job at Lakeview Middle School after graduating apart of the class of 2000 from the University of Tennessee in Chattanooga. At UTC, she pursued her love for math and science and pursued a Bachelors of Science degree along with specialization in Middle Grades Education. She also went on to earn her Master’s degree in Curriculum and Instruction from Central Michigan University and her Education Specialist in Instructional Leadership from Tennessee Tech. Although she was only led into the teaching path because of her love for science, she soon gained a passion for teaching as she acquired relationships with students and watched them achieve their goals. “My favorite part of the job is getting to know the students and hearing about their successes. I love running into former students who have graduated and hearing about what they are doing in college or even in their careers,” states Mrs. Pursley.
Mrs. Pursley wants to positively impact her students to the best of her abilities. She encourages failure because, “with failure comes learning,” she explains. She believes failure creates a sense of respect for others who succeed and empathy for ones that struggle. Overall, Mrs. Pursley is looking forward to helping her students learn to the fullest and excited about what awaits her at HHS.
