Metrovich trades cars for textbooks
SILT — Cactus Valley Elementary teacher Nancy Metrovich has been teaching for many years, but it has been only recently that she has found a home in a school, and gained a classroom of her own.
The first-grade teacher is in her first year of educating Garfield Re-2 students. Previously she taught car salesmen as a product educator for Michigan-based Chrysler.
“There are a lot of similarities,” Metrovich said with a laugh, but she appreciates the hours and the work schedule of her current teaching job.
Metrovich, a Philadelphia native, moved to Michigan after graduating from Penn State with a degree in communications. As a product educator, she traveled across the country educating car dealers about the new lines of cars.
“We'd be on the road for three or four months at a time,” she explained. “That was pretty rough.”
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Eventually, she and her husband became casualties of the downsizing automotive industry, but thankfully, Metrovich was concluding her master's degree in education. Though she was unable to attend any of the Michigan job fairs — an area that Garfield Re-2 recruits heavily from — she and her husband reviewed the list of districts that were attending.
“My husband is an outdoorsman, and likes small towns, so I let him pick a district to apply to. After some research, he picked Garfield Re-2. I applied, and here I am.”
Trading in cars for textbooks has been a good change for Metrovich.
“It's fun every day, but always in different ways on different days. It's structured, but at the same time, very flexible,” she said.
A competitive swimmer in high school and college, Metrovich is also an avid outdoorswoman, and though she hasn't tried skiing in Colorado yet, she is looking forward to it next year — after she delivers her second child this summer.
One of her favorite, funniest moments was playing craps with actor Cuba Gooding Jr. at a casino in Atlantic City.
“I had no idea who he was until after the game was over and everyone kept asking me if I knew who he was,” she said. “He's a very nice guy.”
