From Transportation Specialist to Teacher

Denver, Colorado

After working for the U.S. Department of Defense, Mark McVay enrolled in Troops to Teachers. Today he teaches homeless teens in Denver Public Schools.

When I met my wife in 1990, she was a Gunnery Sergeant in the United States Marine Corps and I was a Transportation Specialist for the Department of Defense. As the father of two daughters from a previous marriage, I had always been an active participant and volunteer in their school activities, and when Janice got transferred to Portland, Oregon, I decided to make education a full-time commitment.

Because I had been employed by the Department of Defense, I enrolled in the Troops-to-Teachers program at Western Oregon University, and six months later I was a full-time middle school teacher.

After several more military moves, I had obtained teaching licenses in Oregon, Colorado, California and Michigan. But it was in Michigan, where I began teaching adult education and GED courses at an alternative high school setting in the evenings in order to supplement my regular teaching salary, that I really discovered my place in education: serving the educational needs of the disenfranchised, the demoralized, the drop-outs and the destitute.

I am currently employed by Denver Public Schools and my classroom is located inside a homeless shelter for high school age students who are, or have been, living on the streets and are attempting to turn their life around.

For me to give them hope, direction and opportunity for a brighter future is like nothing that I have ever done before in education, and it is making a difference on the streets of Denver and in the lives of those who have little place else to turn.

See Mark McVay's profile