It’s safe to say that everyone at Rancho Dominguez Preparatory School knows Ms. Kirchner. She acts as Rancho’s middle school College and Career coach and as the school’s testing coordinator. The outgoing and energetic teacher shared with us some not-so-familiar details of her life.
While we all know her among the staff here at Rancho, she also has the job of raising her child at home.
“I’m a mom! That’s a big job. I have a three-year old,” said Ms. Kirchner.
During her free time, Ms. Kirchner loves to spend time with her young one and doing various adventurous activities.
“I like to ski, go camping, go to the mountains, and travel the world! I’m a very adventurous person,” she said.
Ms. Kirchner listed off some of the places she has vacationed: “I’ve been to Brazil, New Zealand, and Japan. And of course, I’ve lived in Europe for five years.”
Kirchner spent half a decade in Europe as part of her study-abroad program being a junior at Cal Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo.
“I was accepted to go live in Wales in the United Kingdom, which was amazing! I think every college student should take advantage of that and go study in another country,” she said.
She continued, “I spent a year in Wales then I moved to East Germany. My favorite part was living in a castle and meet people from all over the world. [Where I went] was a small school with 8,000 students; students were from Finland, Greece, Italy, Spain, Germany, Canada, a few Americans, France, of course—I mean, literally people from all over the world and that was incredible.”
Kirchner believes that she gets her adventurous personality from the books she indulges in.
“I’m a big reader. When I read about exciting places I like to visit them,” she said.
She told us what she likes to read: “I really love sci-fi and fantasy a lot! Growing up I was reading things like Dragonriders of Pern by Ann McCaffrey, and Lord of the Rings and of course The Hobbit—I still love that! And today, for young adult fiction, I really like the Pendragon series by D.J. MacHale and I like the Uglies series by Scott Westerfield, which we have in the library at our school.”
On the topic of Ms. Kirchner’s favorite things, she is known for parading around with her favorite color in her hair—purple!
She explained how she likes to style her curly locks: “Now that my hair is all white now—my whole life, since I was like, sixteen—I’ve been dyeing it, bleaching and dyeing and putting green, blue, and every color I can come up with in my hair. I even shave it on the sides a bit.”
Ms. Kirchner expressed her delight that everyone colors their hair now without it being considered “weird.” She’s on the fence on whether to dye it another crazy color again.
“I’m debating [on dying it again]. The problem with white hair is that it goes white so fast, so what can you do,” Ms. Kirchner explained.
“But, you know, you can’t drop off a kid at preschool with white hair without people calling you ‘grandma’ so I think I’ll continue!” Ms. Kirchner laughed.
We treasure Ms. Kirchner for her purple hair, love for books, and most importantly, for being a staff member here at Rancho!