Some teachers stay with you forever, and Mrs. Basile is one of them. While Mrs. Basile is a new english teacher at City High, she has worked at South East Junior High in Iowa City for the past seven years and this is her eighth year of teaching.

Teaching was not what Basile wanted to do when she was younger, initially wanting to be a political speech writer. But she was having trouble in school and was needing someone to reassure her. Basile went to her mother, also a teacher.

“I always liked to help kids and hang out with them,” Basile said.

Inspired by her mother, Basile got her teaching degree at the University of Iowa.  Although she enjoyed working at South East, she was disheartened after making connections to her students only to have them for a year before they leave for high school.

This year Mrs. Basile is looking forward to seeing all of her students from last year and creating larger and more permanent bonds with her students, especially for the juniors in her classes the next year and a half.

“Mrs. Basile is the funniest most supportive teacher, plus she is very patient when it comes to us needing her help in class,” Audrey Friestad said.

In addition to teaching, Mrs. Basile is hoping to help the theatre program at City by promoting it in the community. She also wants to bring part of the show to Southeast to motivate the students in theatre at Southeast to continue when they come to City.

“She was such a fun teacher, and I liked how she made her class fun,” Victor Fesenmeyer ‘17 said. “I love how she is so involved in drama. She definitely has an impact on her students.”

As a previous student of Basile, Fesenmeyer is happy to have been in her class and was inspired to do honors level english classes in high school.

“She was a really cool teacher and was very interesting and made the classroom interesting and she was always positive!”