It took Juli Frank to the age of 33 to follow in the family tradition, but she is now preparing to enter her 14th year as teacher, first at East Elementary and now at Zephyr.
Frank will be entering her seventh year at Zephyr, where she teaches fourth and fifth grade math and science, after seven years in the Brownwood ISD.
“Fourth and fifth grade kids are independent enough to do their own thing and don’t need quite as much help with things, but they still think their teacher is the best artist in the world and best singer in the world,” Frank said with a laugh. “I started in second grade, then moved up to third, then up to fourth and fifth and I’m very content with fourth and fifth. I think it’s the perfect age.”
Frank approaches teaching math and science from a different perspective.
“I love teaching math because I love seeing kids that come into the classroom and feel they’re not very good at math and then end up seeing that they can do it,” Frank said. “I try and approach it from the prospective that I’m not really teaching math and science but I’m teaching problem solving and it just happens to be math problem solving or science problem solving, thinking through things and figuring things out, and I think that helps them feel like they can do it.”
Frank graduated college with a Finance degree and originally worked in the accounting world.
“I got to college and everybody said teachers don’t make money, so I got a Finance degree and worked as an accountant for several years,” Frank said. “Then when I was pregnant with my last son we moved to Zephyr and decided it was time for me to switch careers and go into teaching. That was my true calling and I should have done it from the beginning, but I was chasing other things.”
Several members of her family were in the teaching field, and Frank felt from a young age she was destined for the same career.
“I always wanted to be a teacher,” Frank said. “In third grade my mom bought me a grade book and lesson planner that I’d play with. I’d make my sister and dolls go through school with me. I come from a family of teachers. My mom was a teacher, my grandmother was a teacher and an administrator, my aunt followed a path into accounting and switched to teaching, and my sister’s a teacher, so a lot of family history. Growing up I had lots of teachers that believed in me and pushed me to chase my dreams. I always knew I wanted to do that for other people.
“When I was an accountant I was good with numbers but it wasn’t really fulfilling for me. I always had it in me and knew that I wanted to teach. My aunt had done the same thing, been an accountant and switched to teaching and even as an accountant I was one of the trainers at the Longview News Journal when I worked there. I always knew it was my calling and in the classroom was where I was meant to be.”
At the age of 33, the time was right for Frank to make the career move.
“I got certified to teach when I was 33 and taught for 7 years at East under Nanda Wilbourn who was absolutely amazing,” Frank said. “We live a mile from the school in Zephyr so I always suspected I would end up there. Then an opening came available so I switched and I have loved it. My son goes to school there, too, so I get to see him on campus and hang out with him, so that’s been really awesome.”
Frank grew up in a military family, living her childhood in Georgia and Texas, and she graduated high school at San Antonio Madison. She then attended college in Louisiana for one year before returning to Texas State, then lived in Longview until moving with her husband to Zephyr.
She is also heavily involved in the Zephyr First Baptist Church.
“We run on Wednesday nights and have about 60 or 65 kids at little ol’ Zephyr Baptist Church, which is amazing,” Frank said.
She and her husband, Ron, a retired policed officer for the City of Grapevine, have three children – two who live in East Texas and a third, son Wyatt, who is entering his junior year at Zephyr.