Their job requires cooking, cleaning, and watching over students. No, they are not stay at home moms. They are the two new Family Consumer Science (FACS) teachers.

Due to loving their FACS classes in high school, Michelle Cevaal and Rachael Fischer decided to go to college to study education. After working at schools such as Glenbard East, Palatine, and Huntley, the two teachers are at Lake Zurich for the first time.

“[Family Consumer Science ] is career technical education,” Cevaal said, “We teach child development, culinary courses, relationship course. We can also teach business, interior design, fashion, but we focus on the career aspects of those classes and the skills for outside of school.”

The FACS teachers focus on relating what is taught in the classroom to the outside world.

“Basically I teach kids how to cook, but it is more than that,” Fischer said. “It is teaching them how to follow directions, teaching them to read a recipe. We do a lot of recipes that are easy enough to cook in a small college dorm kitchen, or small apartment kitchen, [lessons] hopefully they can take on after high school.”

Along with the food classes, students are able to learn valuable lessons in the other FACS classes, like single survival.

“I teach single survivor [which is] a senior-only class,” Cevaal said. “We touch on budgeting, living on your own, preparing food on your own, careers, going to college, and all of that fun stuff that they will use in the future. Everything that I teach, I try and make it relate to my students’ lives outside of school.”

Family and Consumer Science classes are necessary for students to take, according to Fischer.

“We teach everything from doing a load of laundry when you are living on your own, to sewing on a button if one pops off,” Fischer said, “like when you are going to an interview, and how to fix it.”

Cevaal and Fischer’s jobs do not just stop at teaching in a classroom, however. Along with juggling their classes, Cevaal is the volunteer cheer coach and Fischer is the head varsity cheer coach.

“I was a cheerleader in high school for four years and I was a gymnast before that for seven years, but then I switched over to cheer because I liked the team aspect,” Cevaal said. “I really like it, but I do miss [being a cheerleader] a lot.”

While managing coaching cheer and teaching classes, the teachers practice a growth mindset while working in a new environment.

“Since I am a new teacher I feel like I have to be the best,” Cevaal said, “But it is okay to make mistakes. It is my first year here and I’m just learning as I go.”