EMPLOYEE SPOTLIGHT

As I reflect over my last 15 years in education, I am thankful for all of the unique experiences that each school environment offered and how these experiences helped me to grow into the leader that I am today. I have witnessed firsthand the impact that high performing instruction combined with building meaningful relationships can have on students’ ability to thrive in the classroom and develop into who God has called them to be. More than anything, I have found that the universal need of every child is to feel love and a sense of belonging in their school environment. I am grateful for the way our faculty, staff and students treat one another as family and strive to understand one another’s unique backgrounds and perspectives.

I have been blessed to serve as an educator for grades JK12. This includes being a lead teacher, assistant principal and instructional coach. These experiences helped create my love for the school community as a whole and desire to help support and develop both students and teachers at all levels. One of the things I love most about being at CCS is the ability to interact with all grade levels and divisions. It has been a privilege to experience and be a part of our authentic community and witness firsthand the gifts and talents that God has placed in all of our students’ lives. As the director of diversity and belonging, I am committed to helping students build their confidence and competence in multicultural education as well as creating an atmosphere of unity in Christ. My desire is to help develop students and teachers on our campus and to affirm who God made them to be. Sometimes that is helping our students rewrite the narrative that they have learned about themselves as we each have our own diverse stories that are needed to complete the body of Christ. We all need to embrace our diverse backgrounds beyond just different skin colors. It is how God has fearfully and wonderfully made us and we need to understand the unique story that God is writing in each of our lives and allow Him to work through our identity, abilities and gifts to make an impact where He has placed us.

I have had the privilege of sharing my story and discussing intercultural communication with our upper school world language classes. After I share my story, I encourage them to embrace the elements of their story and their history and identify misconceptions that others have had about them. I am blown away by the depth of their stories and the honesty with which they expressed the assumptions that others have placed on them based on their family history, skin color, socialeconomic status, gender and personality. We discussed that in reality, the depth of who we are is so much bigger that what we see, how those assumptions made us feel and how others feel when we make assumptions about them. My prayer is that our students develop empathy for others and pursue courageous conversations in God-honoring ways.

“I’m excited for this opportunity and believe adding this position to the athletic department is a great next step to helping support female student-athletes and furthering the building of healthy relationships in our Charlotte Christian community.”

Coach Naeher

One tangible way that we are working to make sure that we build unity on our campus and help all students feel a sense of belonging is on the athletic fields. A few years ago, a group of parents of female athletes met with Head of School Barry Giller, Athletic Director Andy Ross and Physical Education Department Head Amanda Naeher to discuss the needs of female student-athletes and how to support them at Charlotte Christian. Coach Naeher was hired as the female athletics coordinator this past July. In this new role, Coach Naeher is charged with mentoring and supporting our female coaches and athletes and directly overseeing the girls’ volleyball, girls’ basketball and lacrosse programs. She also continues to serve as the lower school physical education teacher, P.E. department head and varsity ladies’ soccer head coach.

With the addition of the new role, the athletic department is shifting its structure to utilize more athletic administration to help guide and support each sport. Assistant Athletic Director Jason Estep will now oversee boys’ soccer, baseball and track and field in addition to football. Director of Athletics Andy Ross will continue to oversee the remaining sport programs.

When she first started coaching at the age of 22, Coach Naeher remembers not being sure what to do, how to handle issues that came up as a coach and needing support and mentorship. Over the years, she has been blessed to find a group of women who support and encourage her that she can turn to for guidance when things are tough and to help celebrate the successes. God has created us to live in community and build up one another and support each other. This is the heart of the new role in supporting female athletes. Coach Naeher is working to create a network for our female student-athletes and coaches where they can build relationships and support each other as they compete in their sport.

“Coach Naeher has already been a vital part of athletics at Charlotte Christian for years and I am confident this new role will allow her to have an even greater impact on our department and, ultimately, our student-athletes,” said Mr. Ross. “Her ability to build relationships and experience growing a program will be huge assets in the development of our female coaches and athletic programs.”