By Nicholas Chambers

Many times, when a new teacher comes to a school, their entrance to an ever-giving community of learning is overlooked. Rarely will a teacher come into their new environment and truly stand out from the crowd as a new educator. I’m here to tell you about a special teacher, one that checks all of these boxes; one that I know more formally as Mom: Lower School teacher Jamie Chambers. 

Chambers teaching 5th grade in Livingston, New Jersey. Photo courtesy of Jamie Chambers.

Jamie Chambers grew up in Union, New Jersey, where she attended Kean University and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in K-8 education. Student-teaching 3rd grade while in college, she became a full-time 5th grade teacher just a year after graduating. Working feverishly late nights during two different school years, Chambers got her master’s degree in Math, Science, and Technology in Education, something that she had “longed to achieve” since she started teaching. She taught 5th grade at Harrison Elementary School for five years and 6th grade gifted at Mount Pleasant Middle School for three years, both in Livingston, New Jersey, before making a life-changing decision. 

In December 2005, Jamie and my dad, Michael Chambers, decided to leave everything behind in the urban New York/New Jersey area in search of a better life for their family. Following in Jamie’s parents’ footsteps, the Chambers family decided that Richmond, Virginia was home. After having me, her firstborn, and then my brother Michael (’26) two years later, Chambers decided that teaching was not in the cards at the time. She spent seven years at home with her two sons, something that she prides herself on “every day as they get older.” However, her love for teaching never faded, as she went back to school to receive her K-12 Gifted and Talented Endorsement at the University of Richmond, with the quest of teaching gifted students in Virginia. 

She returned to the classroom in the fall of 2012 as a K-5 Interventionist at Carver Elementary School in Richmond and achieved her goal of teaching gifted students in Virginia one year later after landing a position as a 6th grade I.B. English teacher at Richmond’s Moody Middle School. But the place she called home for the longest was Colonial Trail Elementary School in Glen Allen, teaching 5th grade self-contained gifted for a total of six years. This is where she found her most success as a teacher and began receiving the recognition she always deserved. In 2018, she was awarded the highest honor for a teacher in Henrico County Public Schools, winning the 2018 Gilman Teacher of the Year Award for her school, before following that up with the 2020 Gifted Teacher of the Year Award for her district for her excellence in the classroom with gifted and talented students. Her résumé continued to shine throughout 2020 and her role at CTES, as the team leader, was “everything she ever dreamt about.” However, something was missing.

Chambers at Colonial Trail Elementary School. Photo credit: Jamie Chambers.

Looking back on her time as a public school teacher, Chambers never felt an extreme sense of community at any of her teaching positions. Trying to intellectually connect with her students for one calendar school year before watching them leave for good is one of the common challenges Chambers and many of her teacher peers face as loving and caring individuals. With an eye for community, Chambers began to browse for private school openings in 2019, most notably at The Steward School and Collegiate, and in July 2020, she accepted a job at Collegiate to teach 4th grade in the Lower School. After her first year, she decided that my brother and I would apply to Collegiate, and both of us were admitted to the Cougar community in February 2021, in anticipation of the 2021-2022 school year.

When asked about her transition to Collegiate in fall 2020, Chambers described it as “amazing, but it had its challenges…Coming to Collegiate in the middle of the pandemic was something that was very different for me,” she explained. “With all the restrictions surrounding COVID, it took a lot of getting used to, but I was super grateful to be face-to-face with the students.” 

She attributes her successful transition to the endless phone calls with parents, being embraced by teachers, and a strong sense of the core values held by everyone in the Lower School. She pointed to the regular morning meetings with her students, a time to connect with her children one-on-one about their personal lives, as a pivotal moment in her teaching career. “Going from 32 kids in a class down to 18 was something that I looked forward to from the minute I stepped foot on campus,” she told me. “Having the ability to connect with all of my students in a one-on-one way was a huge reason why I was drawn to Collegiate.” Chambers’ quest to build social-emotional learning and civil dialogue in her classroom is her central goal as a teacher in creating a more “tailored” learning experience for her students.

Chambers with a 4th Grade student at the 2022 Moving-Up Ceremony. Photo courtesy of Jamie Chambers.

Her favorite moment as a new teacher at Collegiate was her first Convocation. Collegiate’s own assembly to welcome the school year brought tears to her eyes, as the entire school gathered around on one field to celebrate the start of the school year. “Seeing all their seniors with their Kindergarten buddies on their shoulders was something that I will never forget, and I can’t wait until my sons get the privilege to experience that as seniors.” 

Now, in her third year at Collegiate, Chambers’ ultimate goal as a teacher is to prepare her 4th Grade students for Middle School. “My job is not always about academics,” she explained. “I want my students to be kind citizens. I want them to identify their strengths and weaknesses now, while being independent, so that in Middle School, they can vouch for themselves and rely less on their parents to do so.” Chambers’ goal to leave a lasting impact on her students beyond Collegiate is emphasized through her role as Lower School Capstone Coordinator, where she leads Collegiate’s Responsible Citizenship program, Envision Collegiate, focusing on nurturing students as scholars, citizens, and leaders in the Cougar Community. 

Her advice to any new teacher coming to Collegiate is to “make connections early… Identify your students’ gifts and talents immediately, so you can differentiate your teaching to their needs and give them the best learning experience possible.” 

We are very lucky to have Jamie Chambers in our Lower School.

Feature image credit: Nicholas Chambers.