Career Opportunities

Mystee Bramble-Ansari is a 5th grade teacher at Tomahawk Intermediate School with 13 years of experience in Berkeley County Schools. A National Board-Certified Teacher, Mrs. Ansari holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Elementary Education from Shepherd University. She is the Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics (STEM) Coordinator for TIS and a member of the school’s leadership team.

Mrs. Ansari is certified by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to train teachers and educate students in We Do 2.0, EV3, and VEX IQ robotics programs in addition to rocketry and coding. She has also participated in training at the University of California at Berkeley for Critical Thinking in the Elementary Classroom. She also believes that hands-on project-based learning fosters social-emotional development while maximizing academic achievement. Her grant-writing skills have resulted in the acquisition of several grants to benefit her classroom and school.

Outside of the classroom, Mrs. Ansari has piloted curriculum initiatives such as the Outdoor Learning Network, which is funded by a grant from the Chesapeake Bay Trust Foundation. Her students visited Back Creek, where they had to classify the watershed by examining the quality of the water and the types of creatures that live there. This led a to a community project to keep the Back Creek watershed clean. Mrs. Ansari’s class is currently in the process of creating a mural to educate everyone that uses the stream on how to keep it safe and clean.

Melissa Burton is an art, photography, and media arts teacher at Musselman High School as well as an adjunct teacher for Berkeley County Virtual School, with 19 years of experience in Berkeley County Schools. A National Board-Certified Teacher, Ms. Burton holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in Photography and Digital Imaging from Shepherd University, and a Master of Arts in Teaching from Marshall University. She is the chair of the Creative Arts Department at MuHS, and a sponsor for the National Art Honor Society.

Ms. Burton’s goal as a professional educator is to give students the power of creative and critical thinking, and one component she utilizes to help them with that is with her lessons on studio lighting. Ms. Burton’s students are tasked with “reading” photographs with the critic’s eye and creating a script to determine what the artist did to get a specific look for that photo. Then, her students are taught the key roles in a studio to help them recreate the images on their own. Their work has led to a popular social media presence, where members of the community have made requests for her students to take their photographs.

Outside of the classroom, Ms. Burton finds many opportunities for her students to showcase their talents. In addition to painting several murals for BCS, her students have participated in several competitions, such as the Youth Art Exhibit and Congressional Art Competition. One of her students had their work displayed at the United States Capitol. Ms. Burton's passion and encouragement has created a safe space for her students where they are able to express themselves.

Lurah Cochran is an English teacher at Hedgesville High School and teaches for Berkeley County Virtual School. She has been with Berkeley County Schools for 16 years, and started her career at Martinsburg North Middle School. She holds a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts in Teaching from Shepherd University. She also serves as the Faculty/Senate President and Junior Class Advisor at HHS.

Ms. Cochran says the lesson that best describes her as a professional educator is poetry. She uses poetry in her classroom as a way for her students to find their creative outlet and succeed, as each lesson can be easily modified for any skill or anxiety level. Her lessons help students create their own poetry, giving them a sense of self, family, trust, and acceptance.

Outside of the classroom, Ms. Cochran continues to work with her AP Literature students on a special Veterans History Project, in conjunction with the Library of Congress. Each year, students record a veteran and document their story for future generations. This will be the 4th year her class has presented their final projects to the Library of Congress, and she is proud that these activities are helping her students become more knowledgeable and understanding of our country’s veterans.Beth Lyons is a first-grade teacher of multi-subjects focusing on English language arts and math. She has been teaching first grade at Hedgesville Elementary School in Hedgesville, West Virginia for 15 years and teaching in Berkeley County for 31 years with 28 of them in first grade.

Mrs. Lyons graduated magna cum laude with her Bachelor of Arts in Elementary Education from Fairmont State University in 1989. She received her Master of Arts in Reading in 2005 from West Virginia University. She received her National Board Certification in literacy in 2008. She has served as faculty senate chair, vice-chair and secretary during her tenure in Berkeley County. She has been a member and president of the Berkeley County Reading Council and served on the WV reading textbook adoption committee in 2021.

Beth Otto is a 4th grade teacher at Tomahawk Intermediate School (TIS) with approximately 16 years of experience in Berkeley County Schools. Mrs. Otto began her career with BCS as a substitute teacher in 2006. While she has served most of her career as a special education and general education teacher at TIS, she briefly worked at Marlowe Elementary as a 1st grade teacher. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Elementary Education from Shippensburg University, and a Master of Arts in Multi-Categorical Special Education from West Virginia University. She currently serves as the 4th Grade Team Leader and the Faculty/Senate President at TIS.

Mrs. Otto’s passion as a professional educator is teaching students to become more avid readers by not just identifying the basics of a story but to make literature come alive. She engages her students by incorporating STEM projects within their novel studies. In one lesson, students make a “moveable light,” or flashlight, with everyday items. These types of activities encourage students to be creative and to use different strategies to achieve a goal.

Outside of the classroom, Mrs. Otto incorporates her love for traveling and hiking into her lessons by teaching students about the world’s ecosystems. Each year, her students learn about the different types of ecosystems, food chains, and resources within the Everglades in Florida. Mrs. Otto connected with a park ranger working at the Everglades National Park during a recent trip, who gave her students a first-hand learning opportunity about the important role the Everglades plays in our world’s ecosystem. Her students also learned that no matter where we live, we all have responsibilities to take care of the communities we live in.