Text and photos by Peter Vankevich
With the new school year underway, two new teachers have joined the Ocracoke School faculty.
Tori Liteschuh is the high school biology teacher replacing Louise Salerno. Liteschuh graduated from ECU in 2023 with a degree in biology.
Moving to Ocracoke in March 2023, she joined the staff of the After School program.
“I fell in love with the school from that experience,” she said.
But this summer, Hyde Schools lost its federal grant for the Hyde 21st Century Community Learning Center (CCLC), which since 2010 funded the after-school programs and other community enrichment.
When the science position opened, she applied and was hired. At the high school level, grades nine through 12, she will teach Intro to Biology, Biology and Earth and Environmental Science.
“Biology goes deep into genetics, DNA, animal and plant cells and I love to do labs with my classes,” she said.
Earth and Environmental Sciences is learning about the earth and one’s environment.
“It includes physics labs, covers theories like Newton’s Cradle that demonstrates conservation of momentum and energy using a series of swinging spheres,” she said.
Her interest in life sciences goes back to her youth. “I love hunting and fishing. I love the outdoors,” she said.
Hailing from a small town that is about as far from Ocracoke and still in North Carolina, Sparta in Alleghany County, Maggie Murphy is the new K through 8 math and literacy specialist.
Even though the geographic distance between her hometown, located in the northwest part of the state, is long, there are similarities between the two communities. Sparta has a population of about 1,800 residents. The school she attended and later taught at, a K through 8 level, is similar in size to Ocracoke School.
She is a graduate of Appalachian State University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in elementary education. She later went back and got a middle school add-on in language arts and social studies, and then a master’s in media and instructional technology.
After teaching elementary and middle school for 13 years, she decided that she wanted to help fellow teachers. She worked for Appalachian State and the New Teacher Support Program for two years. She then worked for a global education company, Participate Learning, whose mission is to unite the world through global learning, which is a catalyst for changing students’ lives.
“After a while, I was missing the classroom so badly that I needed to get back to the kids,” she said.
Ocracoke School Principal Jeanie Owens happened to have a position open.
“And it fits exactly with what I love to do, which is reading and math and just working with as many different students as I can in a day,” she said. “I really enjoy this position and being a help to the teachers and students.”
She’s a teacher without a classroom.
“So, I help the classroom teachers by either going into their rooms or by pulling their students out to do a mini lesson or work on an activity,” she said.
Murphy said her family goes back on Ocracoke a long time ago, “like in the 1830s and ‘40s.” She said they found census records relating to a Simpson family here.
After living on the island for just one month, she already has an assessment.
“I love it here. I love the community. I love the feeling of it,” she said. “Everyone’s been so nice and welcoming. The students are all just unbelievably kind, well-mannered, and polite, and they’re just happy to be here.”
And that makes it, for her, a nice place to work.
