Seeing her throughout the school. Having lunch with her. Hanging out in her room before school. These are all things senior Emily Stuber can do because her mother, Kimberly Stuber, is an English teacher at Plano.    

     “Probably the best thing is just being around my mom,” Emily said. “If I need her for something, she’s two minutes away at any time. I consider myself really lucky because of this, especially when I think about parents being away for weeks at a time or even those that have an hour commute to work every day. I think it’s important to have your parents around and I will have a hard time getting used to being away from my mommy next year.”

     English teacher Megan Bourgeois has taught in the district for 22 years, but for the past two years her son, senior Mason Bourgeois, has been a part of her school schedule. However, that is about to come to an end.

     “There have been a few benefits,” Mason said. “For one thing, I don’t have to pay the $2 registrar fee to get a transcript. Plus, anytime I need a parent signature that same day, I can just head over to A building.”

     Kimberly is thankful that PISD allows transfers so that her daughter could go to the school that she wanted to attend. Originally, Emily was zoned to Plano East Senior High School.

     “We live just on the other side of Custer, so the decision for her to go to Plano was more of a matter of proximity and convenience,” Kimberly said. “I have to admit that the pride and loyalty I have for this school makes me glad we live close.”

     Getting choked up, Megan said that it will be strange to only see Mason occasionally when he goes off to college at the University of Texas at Austin this fall.

     “I really like having Mason around,” Megan said. “But I know how excited he is to go off to college, and that makes me excited for him. Plus, I’m not sure who will be my tech support when I get hung up on the computer at home. Mason has always taken care of that stuff for me. Luckily, his little brother Joey will still be around for a few more years.”

     Emily said there was not a single negative thing about her mom working at school while she attended Plano.

     “If I acted up or got in trouble at school I could see how having a parent may be an annoyance to the student, or, if my mom was disliked by her students, she could be embarrassing,” Emily said. “However, neither of these is true. I consider my mom cool and we always get along very well.”

     Megan being an English teacher has not influenced her son’s college decision. She and her husband wanted Mason, who wants to major in biology, to make his own decision on where to go to get his college education.

     “Education has always been important in my family,” Megan said. “Both of my parents were teachers, and I grew up with the expectation that I would go to college; that has transferred to the next generation. Since Mason was born, we’ve always had the expectation that he would go to college. Luckily, Mason has also had that as a goal for himself, so he has worked hard to make sure that he can get into a good college.”

     Megan enjoys her son being on the campus with her. She said it hasn’t affected their relationship majorly, but it has been helpful for them to be close. Mason agrees with his mom and has one memory involving his mother at school that sticks out to him most.

     “I was running late for first period,” Mason said. “I zoomed into the A building parking lot at 8:58. Everyone knows that’s a risky proposition, and unsurprisingly there wasn’t a single student parking spot left. So I pulled into a seemingly abandoned teacher spot, figuring I could move my car at lunch. Surprise, surprise; they were towing that day. Since so many people knew and liked my mom, Mr. Damewood came up to my AmStud class and warned me, allowing me to go move my car before it was towed. I felt kind of bad about the whole thing, so from then on I’ve really tried to not take advantage of being a bit closer to teachers than my peers.”

     Kimberly and her daughter Emily have a relationship that they are both proud of and hope to keep the rest of their lives.

     “We have to make a bit of an effort to see each other here,” Kimberly said. “But we try to go to lunch about once a week. If possible, it might have made me more proud of her. She is an amazing young lady, and I get to hear directly from her teachers as well as peers about the example she sets academically as well as socially. I just hope I don’t embarrass her too much.”

     Reflecting on the past two years, Megan values one thing most from while her son has attended Plano.

     “The best part is when Mason’s teachers – my colleagues and friends – come up to me and tell me how much they enjoy Mason as a student,” Megan said. “That makes me so proud.”

     Now that the end of this school year is approaching, the realization of going away to college and the changes it will bring have become very real according to Emily.

     “I have made so many memories at school with my friends, cheerleading and my mom. While I will be starting a new chapter next year and will hopefully be having fun in college, I’m definitely going to remember and miss these past two years here,” Emily said. “I won’t get to see my mom or the rest of my family every day, nor will I keep in touch with most of the people I’ve met and become used to seeing every day. Going to college will be the biggest change in my life so far for sure, and I hope that it will be just as memorable, if not more, than my experience at Plano.