Stephanie Valletta, The Coordinator of Scholar Wellness does so much for our school and is also that person that will always be down to chat.
Phoebe Colvin ‘25: Ms Valletta, if you could go back to your high school days, what would you do differently?
Stephanie Valletta: I think I would simultaneously care less, but do more if that makes sense. I feel like we spend so much time worrying about what other people think that we don’t actually get real profound things done, almost feels like you’re like you’re focused on the wrong things sometimes.
PC: What is your favorite project or activity that you’ve headed at IHS since you’ve been here?
SV: I think well, there are a few things: Being in the group with the people that started unified sports here was pretty cool. 2017 when we started [competing] with other section four teams. That is I think the most important thing that helps the most people. My other favorite project though is when we did Little Red Readers during COVID and we had Scholar athletes reading books to our elementary school friends. I thought that was super cool.
PC: What is a lesson that you have learned from a student or from a group of students?
SV: I think you take something from everyone that you interact with and it might not be something like this huge life-altering lesson, but maybe you just take away a little thing. I think, as opposed to Ithaca, I went to a high school that was at least double the size of this.
But it was super monolithic, I felt like everybody was the same. I think one thing that’s amazing about Ithaca is just the diversity, whether it’s background, socioeconomic status, or languages, I mean just so much diversity. Then I feel like if you aren’t learning from the people around you, you are kind of wasting the opportunity.
Max Lindenberg 25’: How did you get where you are today and where do you see yourself going in the future? Any goals you have?
SV: When I graduated high school, I wanted to be a chef but I realized that wasn’t real life because I didn’t want to work nights and weekends and then when I went to college, I was a physical therapy major. And I could not for the life of me pass chemistry, so I changed my major to history and political science, and got my teaching degree with a master’s in special education. I was a special ed teacher in Virginia for three years and then I came here and I’ve been here since 2012. Right now I work in the athletics department and my job is to work with students on academics and leadership opportunities. As for my goals, if I had all the money in the world, I would be like a crossing guard and have the opportunity to say good morning and like set the tone for people’s day. What a gift that would be. But what are my goals? That’s a great question. I have recently started on my administrative classes only to see what it’s like but I might come to the conclusion that what I’m doing right now might exactly be what I want to do. But I have to continue to learn and explore.
ML: What is one thing that you think students should be more aware of in their daily lives?
SV: I think probably knowing that it is an immense privilege to be in school. You might not like it, you might not agree with everything, you might not be super interested in whatever topic, but this isn’t an opportunity afforded to everyone in the world. I think that sometimes we forget that just because we are here and able to do that. But one thing I think that I would tell kids kind of outside of that is that I think that at the moment we’re all trying to do too much when we really should focus on doing a few things really well. I feel like sometimes the college application process is pushing what people are doing, whereas like hey, I’m genuinely interested in this and so I’m going to throw myself into doing this well. And so I hope that for the rest of your lives, you maintain hobbies and interests that interest you and play sports that you actually want to play or as opposed to like your mom makes you or whatever. I feel like sometimes you guys are just doing way too
much and I don’t feel like you have a lot of time just to be and that’s not great for you.
PC: What part of your job makes you the happiest?
SV: Absolutely one thousand percent working with the students but also seeing students grow and take initiative like the women in sports group that has been pushing Miss Little and I to produce more authentic programming for marginalized groups at IHS.
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