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I’m Stephanie Nold, principal at Ballard R-II. I started teaching in 2006 after spending several years on active duty with the Army then joining the Air Force National Guard. I switched things up a few times in college before getting into education. I earned a Math/Science Associates and a Zoology Bachelor’s Degree before getting into some peer to peer tutoring and student leadership activities while working on my Bachelor’s degree. Those experiences led me to a Master’s in Elementary Education. I started teaching in upstate New York where I taught 1st and 3rd grade. After five years of teaching in New York I decided it was time to move back to Missouri. I grew up and graduated from Montrose, but landed in Joplin in 2011 when I returned. I retired from the AF National Guard in 2014 and shortly after I started working on my Specialist Degree. I taught in Joplin for 8 years, most of which were at the 4th grade level with one year at 3rd grade and my final year in Joplin was at the high school co-teaching English and teaching special education before moving on to Ballard as the principal at the start of the 2020-2021 school year.