By Anna Grace Shaia

Balcomb and her dog, Kevin. Photo courtesy of Hallie Balcomb.

Upper School math teacher Hallie Balcomb, new to Collegiate last year, is excited for her second year at Collegiate, now with significantly fewer COVID-19 restrictions.

Balcomb grew up in Maine and graduated from Bates College in 2014.  After college, she taught at a boarding school, Saint James School, in Hagerstown, Maryland for three years. She then went on to teach at Thaden School, a middle school in Bentonville, Arkansas, for four years, where she met her husband, Sam Freeze. She has now landed at Collegiate. Her two previous schools were significantly different from Collegiate. At Saint James, Balcomb experienced living on campus along with her students. In Arkansas, Thaden had opened the year she began teaching there, meaning that she was one of their first math teachers.

Due to COVID-19, Balcomb had never been on Collegiate’s campus until after she accepted her job in the math department, but said she loved how “warm and welcoming and thoughtful the math department was, even over Zoom.” Balcomb and Freeze decided to move to Richmond together because Freeze had family in Richmond, and they both loved the city. When they decided to move, Balcomb asked her friends from Richmond where she should work, and many of them suggested Collegiate. When she heard that there was an open position in the math department, she knew it was perfect. After her first year at Collegiate, she is very grateful that she has had the privilege to know and have close relationships with her students and coworkers.  

Math has always been something that Balcomb was fond of and wanted to pursue. Growing up, she was very successful in the math classes she took. She believes that is because her dad was a math teacher and someone she looked up to. Balcomb describes the math she learned before going to college as “memorization, and things that helped me on tests, but didn’t actually help me be a genuine problem solver.”

In the Upper School, she loves being able to connect more with her students and stay connected with them for the rest of their Collegiate career. Balcomb’s goal in teaching is to help students feel less like math is just memorization and help students use what she teaches as a general exercise in problem solving.

Balcomb and Freeze at their wedding. Photo courtesy of Hallie Balcomb.

Freeze, Balcomb’s husband, was introduced to her by his aunt. Freeze remotely works for Amazon Fresh. Freeze’s aunt lived on Balcomb’s street when she was living in Arkansas and asked if she could give Freeze Balcomb’s phone number. Freeze grew up in London and Holland before his family moved to Arkansas.

Balcomb and Freeze got married this summer on Balcomb’s family farm in Maine, where she grew up. Her sister, Theo, performed the ceremony. When it was time to give a toast after the wedding, Balcomb’s father gave a “30 minute (no exaggeration) toast that heavily featured the fixed point theorem in calculus.” Clearly he was part of her inspiration to become a math teacher.

In Maine, Balcomb grew up on a farm just outside of Portland, where six previous generations of her family had lived before her. She had the privilege of having very close relationships with many of her neighbors who had known her family for many generations, creating a close community. Balcomb played tennis, basketball, and volleyball in high school and was in many clubs. She now coaches Cub volleyball at Collegiate. One reason she enjoys coaching Cub volleyball is because she gets to coach Middle School students who could be in her classroom in the future, allowing her relationship with her students to already have a foundation. 

In her free time, she enjoys taking leisurely walks, reading, trying new foods and restaurants, playing Monopoly Deal with Sam, and doing crossword puzzles. Walks have recently been upgraded with her dog Kevin, a new addition to her family. After recently moving near Forest Hill Park, she enjoys being able to spend more time in the park with Kevin and her husband. 

Balcomb strives to help her students love math in the way that she loves math, giving them the best understanding of what they are learning that she can.