Inspire Alumni Testimonials & Stories

Inspire School of Arts & Sciences played a key role in the development of my character, confidence and creativity. My teachers were passionate role models I admired who truly cared for their students. They encouraged me to explore what I was interested in and were constantly providing their support. I loved that there were so many creative courses offered and the A/B schedule allowed for more of those courses to be options. After I graduated, I felt confident to set out into the world and pursue photography professionally, which I had started as a junior at Inspire. Since then, I’ve traveled and worked in 25 countries throughout North America, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, the Caribbean and West Africa. I’m now living and working out of Brooklyn, New York, as an editorial and commercial photographer. I balance my passion for creating stories in fashion with telling the stories of others through my work with non-profits and nongovernmental organizations. I reflect on my time at Inspire often and am so grateful for all that it provided me. I gained a fantastic education, beneficial life skills, friends, a community, teachers I stay in touch with, and memories I cherish. [button link="http://www.emilyteaguephoto.com/" color="purple" newwindow="yes"] EMILY TEAGUE'S WEBSITE[/button]

Inspire was a school that provided a solid foundation for me both academically, socially, and musically. The teachers were highly supportive and I was able to immerse myself in every extra curricular from ASB Leadership to Pop Band to Musical Theatre. At Inspire I always felt safe, supported and an emerging sense of confidence to try new things. Some of the teachers who shaped my path during these years were Jim White and Jarrah Myles who both were deeply committed to student success. I was at Inspire during some challenging years including the Camp Fire and the pandemic. Despite these setbacks, Inspire never wavered in maintaining high quality opportunities for the students. Inspire supported my desire to do concurrent enrollment classes at Butte College. Before graduating high school in 2022, I was able to complete a huge chunk of college general education courses while getting a full, rich high school experience thanks to Inspire’s support of my goals. In 2024, I graduated from Chico State with a BS in Communication Sciences and Disorders with a minor in Psychology. I was accepted into the CMSD Master’s program at Chico, and am currently studying to become a licensed Speech Language Pathologist. I continue to perform music around the Chico community in my band, Emma & Will and also work as a graduate assistant for the Clinic for Communication Disorders at Chico State.

The biggest gift Inspire gave me was the inspiration of my dedicated (and sometimes quirky) teachers. People often ask me about Inspire, not understanding what it has to offer me. I always tell them that we have the best instructional staff. In Math 3, Mrs. Reynolds taught beyond the material covered in the textbook. While teaching about polynomials, she also taught me about the deeper structures and intricacies behind mathematics. I can still remember her insistence on perfection when I take math tests today. More importantly, when she taught us about exponentials, she also taught us about life. I will never forget curve-fitting an exponential curve to her pregnancy hormones! And today, her lessons on exponential graphs helps me read the news with a critical eye, when suddenly y=e^x is crucial to public health and safety! Speaking of health, in Biology, Mrs. Olson introduced us to the world inside our own bodies. Four years later, I still remember what she told us about how soaps can tear apart fats (like viruses), now inspiring me to wash my hands aggressively. In Spanish 1, 2, and 3, Sra. Reid inspired me to continue learning Spanish in my free time. She helped me work past so many frustrating conjugations and grammar rules, but even better she exposed me to a new culture and perspective. Discussions in her classes helped me open up - even though I used to be shy. Once I reached AP Spanish with Sr. Isern, I realized that I had become a completely new person through Spanish. I feel more extroverted and out-going in my new second language, even willing to trip over my tongue trying to talk to a native speaker. Mrs. de la Torre's challenging AP US History was made possible by her passion for teaching. I was shocked to have aced the AP test under her wing, despite missing a month of school due to the Camp Fire. She helped me see a complete view of American History, giving me a deeper appreciation for civil rights and the context I needed to succeed this year in Government. And once I had somewhat outgrown Inspire's math and science classes, our counselors and the whole office staff helped me pursue my goals. They allowed me to follow my education at Chico State, where I was happily surprised that my teachers had prepared me wonderfully for college. The transition was smooth and often the workload was easy in comparison to the standards at Inspire.

I came to Inspire my sophomore year, and if I could go back in time and do things differently, I absolutely would. I would come in my first year so that I could experience all four years of high school at Inspire. This school has changed my life in more ways than anything else I’ve experienced. Inspire offers so many extracurricular courses, and it gave me the opportunity to really find my passion; and I did. I completely fell in love with digital media, specifically video production, and this is something I am now pursuing as a career. Without the extensive list of classes and resources that Inspire offers, I wouldn’t have the slightest clue as to where my future is headed. Not only did Inspire pave the way for my career plan, but it also helped me tremendously on a more personal level. Before coming to Inspire, I had lived in four different towns and attended three different schools. It was hard for me to really feel like I was a part of anything when I was so used to moving around. Inspire was the first place that I really felt a sense of belonging. The environment at this school is so open and welcoming, it’s really just like its own little community. It’s so different from the other schools I’d been to, because you can just tell that all the faculty, they truly care about each and every kid here. You can just feel the love and support. It’s because of the environment at this school that I was able to find the strength and courage to blossom and become the person that I was meant to be. My senior year, I came out as transgender, and even though it was a really scary experience, I felt totally safe because of the support and acceptance that this school encompasses. And that experience alone has completely changed my life in so many ways. If I hadn’t come to Inspire, I honestly don’t know what my life would be like now. I don’t know where I’d be or even who I’d be. What I do know for sure, is that I am far better off having experienced all that Inspire has to offer. And far down the line when I have kids of my own some day, I hope that wherever I am, I’ll find a school that will give my kids as good of experiences as the ones that Inspire gave me.

Inspire School of Arts and Sciences is by far the best high school in Butte County. I have spent the past for years commuting 60 miles a day in order to get the best education available to me. One of my favorite aspects of Inspire is the opportunity to take so many classes. Inspire gave me the opportunity to take nine classes whereas an average high school would have only allowed me to take six. With those opportunities I got to take four years of Spanish, Orchestra, and Ceramics, all elective classes that I wouldn’t have gotten to take at the high schools in Oroville. With these opportunities I was able to find my passion for the arts and still follow my passion for science. Inspire is the best school that I would have wanted to go to, and going there has been amazing. Another way that Inspire helped prepare me for continuing my education and pursuing my passion was with the amazing teachers and staff there. I have never had such wonderful teachers in my life, teachers who care deeply about their students and teaching them.