Mastering the learning curve: Couple reflects on working together, separately in education

Next month, around the time students and teachers are taking off for spring break, David and Keri Howard will be celebrating their 18th wedding anniversary.

The Howards’ anniversary highlights the nearly two decades the pair have spent associated with Vestavia Hills City Schools.

This school year, David Howard, Vestavia Hills High School’s assistant principal, started his 20th year in the school system.

In that time he has served as an eighth-grade science teacher at Pizitz Middle School as well as at the central office and in his current position.

“My whole career has been in Vestavia,” he said.

Keri Howard is the school counselor at Liberty Park Middle school, and their daughter Amelia attends Vestavia Hills Elementary Liberty Park next door.

The Howards met at the University of Alabama, where both were studying to become teachers.

In 1997, as he was preparing to enter graduate school and realized he needed a job, David Howard said, he attended a career fair at UA.

“Lo and behold, I get a call to come up to Vestavia and interview at Pizitz,” he said.

As the couple was dating at the time, Keri Howard tagged along, opting to sit outside and get some work done while he met with the school administration.

“I sat in the car while he interviewed,” she said, recalling the day trip to Birmingham with a laugh.

When his interviewers asked about his family and personal life, David Howard told them she had come with him, and they immediately told him to bring her inside.

“They were just so welcoming and inviting, and showed us around the school, and that was how we ended up here in Birmingham,” he said. “It all started from there.”

Keri Howard said she finished her degree and got her first teaching job in Tuscaloosa, but once the couple tied the knot she began to look for work in Birmingham.

She first took a position at Glenwood Health Center.

When Vestavia decided to add a life skills unit at Vestavia Hills Elementary Central, she said, her husband was able to connect her to the right people, and she got a job as a special education teacher.

“Really, he brought me here,” she said.

Though they work in different buildings, David Howard said that a lot of what they do is similar at its core.

“With what I do and what she does, we kind of do similar things,” he said. While a lot of his job description deals with discipline, the root of those student issues generally are emotional or situational.

“That all starts with hearing stories,” he said.

Keri Howard agreed.

“And sometimes it is good, because if there’s a problem and I don’t  have a solution or I need advice about how to handle this or that, that’s nice too to be able to bounce ideas off of each other,” she said.

Being a couple working in the same field, but not working at the same location, has unique challenges, the couple said, perhaps different than if they owned a business together or taught at the same school.

Primarily, Keri Howard said, the challenge is leaving work at work — not bringing the stress or details of a tough day home.

“There are times that we kind of have to compare notes and discuss some things, but for the most part, when we’re home: we’re home,” she said.

For any new couples facing working in the same industry or same workplace, the Howards had one major piece of advice: stay focused on what matters.

“Definitely just keeping family centered in what you are striving to do,” David said.