Bee-o-int-te, Bo-int, Boe-net. All three different ways to say her name, but all are incorrect.

Boente, pronounced Bent-te, is one of the eighteen science teachers within the school department.

Boente went to the University of Iowa for two years before transferring to the University of Illinois for the last two years of her undergraduate degree. Boente began teaching after graduating from Illinois, starting as a substitute teacher at Lincoln Park High School, where she eventually became a teacher for two years.

She then moved to Colorado and began teaching in the Aurora Public Schools District at Vista Peak High School. After the principal of her last school left, she began looking for a different career path. Boente applied for a position at Rock Canyon.

“[Rock Canyon is] definitely the best school I’ve taught at, I’m definitely the happiest here,” Boente said. “I do miss parts of the other schools. I miss the diversity, the different points of views and things like that, people from different backgrounds.”

Growing up, Boente never really had a dream career but can always remember looking at teaching and thinking of a career in it.

“I think that I just always wanted to be one,” Boente said. “I remember in first grade, when we dressed up as what we wanted to be when we’re older. I [dressed] up as a teacher and I think it’s just what I like to picture myself as.”

Boente is currently in year five as a Jag and year 10 of teaching total.

“My degree is I majored in Integrative Biology, and I minored in chemistry at U of I, and then I went to DePaul in Chicago and I got my masters in secondary science education,” Boente said.

Even though teaching has always been something Boente has had an interest in and loved doing, if she could have a dream job, she would be a genetic counselor.

“I teach genetics. It’s obviously something that I find really interesting,” Boente said. “That field allows you to really kind of combine the science piece and also the working with people piece. So I do get that in teaching but it’s just kind of a completely different application to things. I just find it super interesting.”

The application of science combined with helping people is what makes the job so interesting to her.

“I think that [genetic counseling is] something that’s always going to have a need for jobs,” Boente said. “There’s a lot of need for that position because we have lots of different technologies. A lot of the time, it’s used when people are trying to have children, and now that we have lots of technology as far as in vitro fertilization and that kind of stuff, there’s just definitely going to be a need for it and just the whole field of genetics. “

Boente teaches regular Biology, a class mostly taken by sophomores, and also teaches Genetics, an elective that any student can take.

While Boente currently only teaches science, she grew up playing volleyball and coached volleyball for a few seasons.

“I played [for] like my whole life before that and I used to coach [at Rock Canyon] so it’s definitely one of my favorite things,” Boente said. “I volunteered my first year, so that was 2019 [to] 2020 but I wasn’t really like a coach that year. So I would say from 2020 to 2022 [I coached]. So I think I did it for three seasons.”

She was the sophomore girls volleyball coach for two years and then was the head JV boys volleyball coach for the 2020 season. The team only had one game due to COVID-19 interrupting the season.

“We won [that game],” Boente said. “And then we didn’t have a season after that. So we technically went undefeated.”

While Boente does not coach anymore, she spends her free time with her daughter Mackie and also enjoys kickboxing.

“I have a heavy bag in my basement, but I just don’t use it very often,” Boente said.

Before having her daughter, Boente would find herself up in the mountains skiing almost every weekend with her husband when they moved from Illinois to Colorado.

“Skiing is something [that I enjoy], that’s like one of the main reasons that we moved out here is because we both love to ski and we both love the mountains,” Boente said.

Boente spends her time in room 9200 throughout the day, helping students and teaching.

“[Rock Canyon] is definitely the best school I’ve taught at,” Boente said. “That’s why I’ve stayed here.”